


catching feelings

by novajanna



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 06:45:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novajanna/pseuds/novajanna
Summary: Jonny is actually the second person Pat ever came out to, way back in rookie year. At the time he’d only told Erica, but it had felt more real to say it to Jonny, somehow.“Huh,” Jonny had said, just this quiet, considering noise, and Pat’s heart had stopped for a split second. “Thanks for telling me, Kaner. But be careful about picking up, ok?”And with that piece of extremely practical advice, he’d clapped Patrick on the shoulder and walked away.





	catching feelings

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic in this fandom, and my first fic in any fandom in about three years -- so please, be gentle.
> 
> Many thanks to K and S for betaing this despite having literally no interest in hockey fandom and even less understanding of weird hockey slang -- you are both lovely and helpful beyond belief.
> 
> This loosely follows summer 2017 & the opening part of the 2017-2018 season, but it's not perfect, and I fudged some details on purpose. Forgive me, RPF gods.

Jonny calls him one afternoon when Patrick is by the pool.

“Hey,” Patrick says, sitting up a little higher in his deck chair to shake off his sleepiness. “What’s up?” Jonny doesn’t usually call him unless they’re organizing logistics for something, or there’s something urgent. They never see each other in the summer, and have no plans until the convention, so Patrick is groggily concerned.

“Hey,” Jonny says, not sounding urgent at all. “I hear you gave up your seat on the plane, very patriotic of you.” 

Patrick is wholly unprepared for this kind of chirping, but it’s a familiar argument. Jonny sees a lot of what he calls “worship” of the troops to be problematic, and Patrick just sees at it as an extension of common courtesy, a different level of the usual politeness. 

He says as much, and Jonny snorts. “Sure, man, but you wouldn’t have given up your seat to just anyone. I’ve seen you pretend you don’t see rickety old ladies on transit before.”

“Hey now,” Patrick says, because honestly, that was one time, and she wasn’t rickety at all. Seemed very spry, honestly. “Can we skip the part where you lecture me about my baseless patriotism?”

“It’s not,” Jonny starts, exasperated, but then lets out a quick breath, like he just realized he was about to do it anyway. “Okay, okay. I’ll let it go.”

“You’re too kind,” Patrick says, grinning. He stands up to walk along the edge of the pool, stretching a little as he goes. “Weren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says. “I went.”

There’s a brief pause. Patrick sits down to let his legs rest in the water, feeling too hot. “Oookay,” he says, slowly, like maybe Jonny will explain to him what that was all about.

“So anyway,” Jonny says, and then he stops, like he’s going to leave it at that, like he’s not the one that called Patrick.

“Man, the suspense is killing me,” he says finally.

“What are you up to?” Jonny says, like maybe that’s the whole reason he called.

“Sitting by the pool. That’s basically where I’ve been.” He wants to pretend like it’s been relaxing, but mostly he’s been avoiding watching game tape in his den by getting sunburned while replaying every second of every shift he skated in his head. He feels restless, suddenly, kicks his feet a little in the water. “Did you just miss the sound of my voice, man?”

Immediately he regrets it. He sounds defensive, and knows Jonny will be, too, when really Pat is more than happy to talk to Jonny anytime, anywhere, any way. “No, I just – I don’t know. That was a rough playoffs. Rough end to the season.”

“Yeah,” Pat agrees, stands up again. He walks back into the shade near the house, grabbing his beer on the way, and sits heavily down on the back step. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Fuck no,” Jonny says, right away. “But I thought maybe you might.”

“I keep having to stop myself from watching game tape,” Pat admits, and Jonny laughs at him.

“And people always say I’m the one in my own head.”

“You are,” Pat says, thinking about all the times Jonny’s just…disappeared, around but not present, going over his own shit. Pat breaks down plays, wants to watch the exact moment he fucked up again and again, feel how to fix it. Sometimes he wants to talk it out, but most of the time it’s like not everyone can detail every play in their heads the same way, and it frustrates him. 

Jonny reads the game differently, usually, and aside from obvious mistakes like turnovers or missed shots, he’s more about visualizing, figuring out what’s up with his own headspace, what’s not clicking, how to make it work in the bigger scale. In that way, maybe, Pat is more focused than Jonny in a lot of ways, gets more locked on to things, whereas Jonny can just seem out of it. 

“Sometimes,” Jonny allows, but he does sound surprisingly chill.

“I appreciate you checking up on me, man, but I promise I’m not, like…planning a long walk off a short pier, or whatever.” He swirls around the last dregs of his beer, trying to decide if he wants another one.

“Well, that’s great to hear,” Jonny says. “I just wanted you to know we could talk it out if you wanted. I bet your sisters are sick of hearing about it already.”

“My sisters won’t even bring it up,” Pat says. His dad, on the other hand, has been all over it, just like he has been since Pat was a kid. “I once read this thing about something called Tetris Syndrome, where if you play a video game enough you start to see it when you close your eyes, or even in your peripheral vision.” He pauses. “I feel that way about hockey whiteboards, sometimes, like I can see the plays mapped out, over and over, again and again, like it’s everywhere.”

“Makes sense,” Jonny says, and Patrick can hear him rustling around, running water, like he’s in the kitchen. Patrick glances at his watch – 6:00, which means 5:00 in Chicago, just in time for Jonny to start making his old person early bird dinner. “I know you see that shit so differently.”

“Yeah.” He finishes the last of the beer. “But I’m ok. I’m going to get out of here, I think. There’s some charity shit I could be doing. Get out of my own head.”

“Good,” Jonny says, approving, and Patrick wants to snark at him for the tone but actually he appreciates the talk, and even, a little bit, appreciates the approval.

“Ok, go make your old man dinner,” Patrick says, and Jonny just scoffs before hanging up on him.

****

“Hey,” Jonny says, sounding distracted.

“Hey,” Pat says, and then there’s a pause. Pat smiles to himself. “So…what are you wearing?”

Jonny gives his little huff of a laugh on the other end of the line. If Pat’s honest with himself, he’s spent a significant portion of his career trying to get Jonny to laugh at the shit that he says. The first time he realized he was really, actually into Jonny, and not just having some sort of hockey-bro crush because Jonny’s hockey is ridiculous, it was because he had gone out of his way to search Jonny out, to tell him a particular joke. He wanted all of Jonny’s focus on him. 

“Shorts. A t-shirt.”

It shakes Pat out of his nostalgia. “Oh yeah baby, tell me more. What color t-shirt? How tight are your shorts?”

This time Jonny actually laughs, fully, and Pat can picture him, that open-mouth, head-back look he gets when something really gets him. Jonny always laughs like it’s being surprised out of him, like he’s startled to find something funny. Captain Serious. “It’s hard to find shorts, man,” he says, painfully serious, and now Pat’s laughing.

“Tough life.”

“Yup.”

“Must be rough for you, being famous and accomplished and rich, but just…”

“Shorts, man,” Jonny says again, and Pat can basically hear him shaking his head. “You wanna talk about Breadman?”

“Woah,” Pat breathes out, all at once. It’s a rapid change of conversation, and Jonny seems to realize it just as abruptly.

“Ah, sorry,” he says. “I figured that’s why you were calling, is all.”

“Yeah, yeah, just let me ease into it, jesus.”

“I thought that’s what the dirty talk was for,” Jonny says, and Pat bites his tongue a little behind his grin. 

When Patrick first met Jonny, it was like Jonny was trying so hard to do and say the right thing that he only made these really painful jokes, just one-liners that sometimes hit and usually didn’t, and he never even seemed to find them funny himself. Over time, he’s loosened up a lot, makes jokes a lot more naturally and a lot less like an alien trying to fit in, but he still gets this stupidly pleased look on his face when someone really cracks up at something he’s said.

“Yeah,” Pat says again, useless, and sighs. “I’m sad ‘temi’s going. Glad we get Saader back, obviously, but…”

“But it’s hard to lose someone you personally connect with that well for the sake of the grand scheme of things.”

“Yeah,” Pat repeats. Jonny gets it. “It just sucks. I know why it makes sense. But it sucks.”

“We need more depth.”

“Pfft, come on,” Pat says. “We have depth. There are only a handful of teams with more depth than us.” Jonny makes a little humming noise, and Pat knows they’re both thinking about Pittsburgh. Fucking Pittsburgh. “Plus you need a winger with Hoss out.”

“True,” Jonny says, and Pat’s positive he’s thinking about apologizing for it, the trade of a winger for Jonny instead of a winger for Pat. He seems to think better of it. “More consistency. More experience. Whatever they’re gonna say, it doesn’t matter. Something had to get shaken up a little.”

“We had a great season,” Pat argues, mostly futile. He’s had this conversation in his own brain a million times, with his family, with other guys on the team, and with Jonny, already. Jonny and him talked about it basically the whole way through those four games, every damn day, trying to shake something loose, trying to figure out what was happening. The Hawks were usually a team that did well under pressure, thrived in the playoffs, and this year – the opposite.

“Yeah,” Jonny says. “But we got swept out of the first round. It was fucking embarrassing.”

“You’re not wrong,” Pat says, and he gets up off the couch to get himself a beer. “Fuck, I didn’t want to think about this again. I feel like I finally got my brain to quiet the fuck down about it.”

“Ah, sorry,” Jonny says.

“I called you, dipshit.” Pat rolls his eyes.

“Sure, to talk about what I’m wearing,” Jonny shoots back. “It’s gonna be good, Peeks. This season. I know it.”

Pat can’t help but warm a little at the nickname. “Yeah. Gotta be. We’ll revisit the classic teams.”

“You look so good on my wing, oh baby, oh baby,” Jonny says, painfully deadpan, and Patrick laughs outright.

“A girl can dream,” he says. 

He wants it too suddenly, to have that kind of chemistry again. Him and Artemi was one thing, so fucking fast, so good to watch on replays, but nothing is like playing with Jonny. They have different but complementary playing styles and Patrick misses it, when he thinks about it too much. Not that they’ve had much to show for their power play. 

Patrick suddenly feels exhausted by hockey, and feels weird for bugging Jonny. “I’ll let you go, Tazer. Talk soon.”

“Ok, Pat, bye,” Jonny says, just as Pat hangs up.

******

A week later Patrick is grocery shopping when he gets the news, the little alert pinging on his phone. “Holy shit,” he says, out loud, in the cereal aisle. And then, without even really thinking about it, he calls Jonny. “Holy shit,” he says, as soon as Jonny says hello.

Jonny laughs at him. “So, Sharpy,” he says, and he sounds like he’s still smiling.

“Sharpy,” Pat confirms, unable to keep from grinning. “It’ll be good to have him back.”

“It’ll be a pain to have him back,” Jonny says, and they’re both right.

“Classic teams is fuckin’ right,” Patrick says, and then self-consciously glances around the aisle. “He’ll have to get his point production up again, though.”

“I imagine that’s why they only signed him for a year, Pat,” Jonny says, and he sounds like he’s laughing at him again. “Dare you to say that to Sharpy.”

Patrick laughs. “I think that’s your job, captain.”

Jonny snorts. “I’m gonna try to stay off Sharpy’s radar, I don’t have the energy to deal with the full force of his attention.”

“I have a hunch you’re gonna get it anyway.” Patrick grins.

Jonny’s quiet for a second. “How is it possible that Sharpy still kinda terrifies me?”

Pat laughs. “Tazer, that guy is always gonna make us both feel like we’re eighteen again, I think.”

“No kidding, Peeks,” Jonny says wryly, emphasizing the name on purpose. “Be good to have them back.”

“Uhhuh,” Pat says. He’s distracted, idly comparing prices on yogurt, and they’re both just breathing at each other for a second. “Alright, Jonny. I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye, Pat.”

****

Jonny looks the way he always does mid-summer: tan and strong and way more distracting than Patrick is ever willing to give him credit for, even in his head. But then they’re right back in the same place where Pat feels like he’s following Jonny around like a lost puppy, always tuned in to where he is. 

“Everyday superpower,” Sharpy says, sliding up next to him. “Go.”

They used to play this game a lot, at random intervals when everyone was too sick of Would You Rather and Fuck, Marry, Kill. You come up with something you’d love to have as a tiny, useful superpower, something that wouldn’t help you save the world but would make your daily life just a little bit easier. He’s so out of practice, though, both with the game and with Sharpy’s surprise attacks, that he almost says, _always knowing how to shake Jonny out of a funk_. He reels that in real quick, taking a quick drink from his water bottle and mulling it over. 

“Hmm,” he says.

“Always being able to reach something on the highest shelf?” Sharpy offers, and Pat elbows him in the ribs.

“Fuck off,” he says. “I haven’t missed you at all. Okay.” He takes a breath. “Everyday superpower… always ordering exactly the right amount of take out.”

Sharpy nods. “Good one. How about…always knowing exactly what you were supposed to pick up at the store.”

Patrick laughs. “Spoken like a true married man.”

“For sure.” Sharpy grins. He follows Patrick’s gaze, and Patrick is watching Jonny walk across the room. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something but then Jonny is there, in front of them, pulling Sharpy into a quick hug, slapping his back and squeezing just a little too hard, like Jonny always does. “Hey, Toes,” Sharpy says. “Didja miss me?”

“Not even once,” Jonny says, even though they all know it’s a lie.

“Quick, everyday superpower.” Sharpy pokes Jonny in the chest.

Jonny groans. “I fucking hate this game.”

“That’s ‘cause you have no imagination,” Patrick says.

Jonny gives him the finger, making a hmming noise to himself. Then he grins, and makes eye contact with Pat, dead on. “Knowing what someone likes in bed on the first try. Like, all their buttons.”

“Solid,” Sharpy allows. “But also makes me wonder exactly how many tries it takes you in bed to figure it out usually.”

Jonny laughs and refuses to rise to the bait, just slings an arm around Pat’s shoulder, gives a half-shrug. “I do alright.”

Having Jonny this close, pressed against him, and looking _good_ in his suit, all warmth and strength – Pat can’t help but think about it. What Jonny would be like in bed, the first time, the hundredth time. Jonny always wants to be the best. Thinking about having all that attention focused on him makes Pat go hot all over.

He takes another sip of water and tries not to lean into Jonny too much.

“How’s Lindsey?” Sharpy asks, and because Jonny’s so close Pat can feel the moment Jonny tenses all over.

“Uh, she’s good,” Jonny says, and seems to force himself to settle down a bit, leaning away from Pat but stealing his water simultaneously. He looks down to unscrew the cap like it’s going to take his utmost concentration, then says, real low, “We’re not together anymore.”

Patrick had sort of suspected that, but Sharpy looks shocked.

“She was…she wanted me to propose, and I didn’t want that,” Jonny says. He shrugs, self-consciously. “You know how it goes.” Then he looks at Sharpy, smiles kinda sadly. “Well, I guess you don’t, really.”

Pat does. He and Amanda had had the same fucking conversation when they broke up, that weight of expectation that Pat just didn’t feel a drive towards, hadn’t felt like it was the obvious next step that everyone else – his parents, his sisters, his teammates, Amanda – saw it as. It hadn’t felt right, and he trusted his gut enough to know that you probably shouldn’t propose to someone if it doesn’t feel like something you can’t live without.

“Shit, Tazer, I’m sorry,” Sharpy says, and Jonny shrugs again, and hands Pat back his water bottle.

“Everyday superpower,” Jonny starts, and seems like he’s going to trail off for a second again before he says, “Always sinking the shot when you throw a ball of sock tape into the trash can.”

Pat groans. “And never having to hear anyone make the fucking, ‘And that’s why you don’t play basketball’ joke ever again.”

Jonny snorts. “No kidding.”

“My aim’s pretty great already,” Sharpy says, for once willing to let the change in subject ride. “Ok, everyday superpower…”

Pat watches Jonny seem to relax a bit as they talk, as more teammates drift in and out of the game and catch-up conversation. Pat hadn’t known about Lindsey, even though they’ve talked a lot this summer, and it seems pretty clear that no one else had either. 

Jonny catches him watching and raises his eyebrows as the conversation flows around them.Pat shakes his head, then mimes taking a drink. Jonny rolls his eyes and nods at the same time, and they head off for the bar.

****

Jonny is actually the second person Pat ever came out to, way back in rookie year. At the time he’d only told Erica, but it had felt more real to say it to Jonny, somehow. 

“Huh,” Jonny had said, just this quiet, considering noise, and Pat’s heart had stopped for a split second. “Thanks for telling me, Kaner. But be careful about picking up, ok?” 

And with that piece of extremely practical advice, he’d clapped Patrick on the shoulder and walked away. 

At first Patrick had been relieved, and then kind of annoyed; like, he’d just come out to someone, taken this huge step, and all Jonny had for him was a single sentence? But over time Jonny did all the right things: He never ignored Patrick’s confession, but he never made a big deal out of it, either. He just…made his same dumb jokes, with his same dumb laugh at his own jokes, but sometimes he made them about Patrick being a little fucking gay, in this sly, winking way, that only the two of them would get, and it always made Patrick feel seen in a way he usually wasn’t. Like Jonny knew it was important to acknowledge it, but was still a dumb dude who didn’t do feelings very well.

Now they’re out with the boys, having a low-key night after long convention days, and Jonny nudges him, angles both his beer and his head over in the direction of a booth across the bar. 

There’s a dude there, looking over at them, and Jonny’s got a good eye, because the dude is not just fascinated that they’re the Blackhawks, he is looking at Pat specifically. When Pat meets his gaze, he blushes slightly, but takes a beat to drop his own, holding it for a second. Pat grins, and ducks his own head. 

“Are you being fucking bashful right now?” Jonny asks, chuckling.

“Bashful? Look at you, word-a-day calendar,” Patrick shoots back, which is mainly funny because Jonny does have a word-a-day calendar. It’s sitting on the desk he never uses in the office he never uses, but Patrick appreciates his commitment to walking in there every day and turning the damn thing over.

“Fuck you,” Jonny shoots back, and that’s great, that’s all he’s got, only then he’s looking back across the bar. “You could, you know.”

“I couldn’t,” Patrick says, not even looking up.

“Pat,” Jonny starts, and Patrick cuts him off.

“Come on, Tazer.” Jonny just frowns at him. 

He looks good tonight, t-shirt sticking to his skin, tugging down near his collarbone. Patrick has long since built up immunity to Sharpy’s smile and Seab’s shoulders and Hoss’ quiet accent, but he has never, ever managed to build up an immunity to Jonny’s….anything. 

His crush on Jonny is so settled in his brain that he doesn’t actually think about it too much, but sometimes Patrick’s looking at Jonny’s dumb face and he gets caught up, a little, completely accidentally, and it feels sudden every time, that sharp remembering of just how into Jonny he is. He gets these weird, visceral flashes, like right now he can’t help but think about sinking his teeth into Jonny’s shoulder, right where the collar is stretched out a little. But Jonny’s still looking across the bar. 

“Jonny, for real, dude. What am I gonna do? Go talk to him in front of all these people? Leave with him in front of all these people? Have something show up on Deadspin? Best case scenario, they think I picked a fucking fight. Worst case…”

Jonny takes a long drink from his beer, his brow furrowed. 

The truth is, Patrick has only picked up dudes a handful of times, and none of it was great. The first time was in LA, because it’s the safest place to not be recognized, somewhere that far West, that much California. They’d been out as a team because they had a late start the next day, a bit of a break, and he’d lost the boys in a club on purpose. He hadn’t necessarily planned on going home with anyone, but this guy had bought him a drink, slid up to him at the bar all confident, and Patrick had just…wanted to try it. The dude had been about his height, and toned in a way that meant he worked out for aesthetics more than strength. He’d been an interior designer, knew fuck all about sports (“not one of those queers, yaknow?” the dude had said, like Patrick had any fucking clue), and he had given great fucking head. Patrick had returned the favour, back at his apartment, sloppier for sure, but the guy got off and Patrick had liked it, had felt a strange, flooding reassurance that felt like validation, like the scary thing he’d admitted to himself and a handful of people was real, not just something he made up in his head.

This guy, in the bar right now, he is more Patrick’s type. The other guys have all been slim and, like…twinky, for lack of a better word; like the kind of porn Patrick found when he was first looking, before he figured out what to search for. It’s not bad, it’s just not what he wants, if he’s honest with himself. Patrick’s brain has been hockey for so long that what he appreciates on any body are muscles that have purpose, loves the arms on dudes who look like they do hard work for a living, and, yeah, maybe doesn’t always want to be the strongest person in the room.

“We’d have your back, you know,” Jonny says, shaking him out of it. 

Patrick glances back at the dude, his button-up with the sleeves pushed up, the tattoos on his forearms, the snapback on his head.

“It’s a fucking Blackhawks hat, dude,” Patrick says, trying to sound firm but probably mostly sounding sad. He knew the fourth beer was a bad call.

“Well yeah, he knows who you are,” Jonny says, then grins, “and he still wants to fuck you, for some reason.”

“Ok, well first of all, asshole, I’m a fucking catch, and second of all, who says he’d be fucking me, huh?” Pat’s not even really mad, just trying to give it back to Jonny, get them into banter and actually off the topic of whether Pat’s going to act on this. But Jonny suddenly sits up straight.

“I, uh,” Jonny starts, and then stops again. He won’t meet Patrick’s eyes, is running his hand over his neck in that weird, restless gesture he’s always had. “I didn’t mean to imply.”

Pat waits a second in case he’s going to keep going, but Jonny is done. “Jonny, I don’t…like, I don’t care, man. I was just throwing it back at you, jesus, can you chill?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jonny says, exhaling, and he finally looks at Patrick.

Pat grins at him, sleazily. “I mean, I like it either way, but don’t assume that just ‘cause I’m small I’m always the one getting fucked.” 

It’s not even true, is the thing; he’s never had anyone fuck him, but it feels like way too much to let Jonny know that. They don’t really talk about the particulars of what Pat gets up to, though Jonny does know he’s picked up dudes a few times.

He means to make Jonny loosen up a little, get back into teasing, but Jonny just shakes his head a little. “I wasn’t. Assuming, I mean. And you’re not small.” And with that Jonny stands up abruptly, walks away saying, “Gotta piss.” 

Patrick just stares in complete bewilderment at the spot where he’d been sitting.

Patrick’s still blinking, trying to work through that conversation, when the guy from across the bar sits down across from him. “Uh, hey,” he says, and extends his hand. “I’m Brian.” He smiles when Patrick reaches across on automatic and shakes it, and then holds on for an extra second and says, “I’m a big fan.”

“Can I…sign something for you?”

“Sure,” the guy – Brian – says, taking his hat off and sliding a hand self-consciously through his hair. Patrick always carries a marker with him in Chicago, just in case, so signing it is no problem, and he hands it back quickly. 

He still feels a little off-kilter from that conversation with Jonny, doesn’t know where the hell Jonny went, and he isn’t quite sure what to do with Brian in front of him. His tattoos stand out against his muscles and Patrick finds it distracting. He thinks maybe Brian’s caught him looking when he glances back up to his face. 

“Hey,” Brian says, fitting his hat back on his head, backwards again, and jesus does Patrick have a type. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Patrick gives a quick exhale, doesn’t realize he was sitting so tense, and bites his lip for a second before he realizes what that probably looks like. “You mean you wanna buy me a drink?” If Pat’s going to do this, he’s going to be cautious as hell, has to be, in Chicago, with the guys nearby.

Brian smiles, slow and easy, gives a shrug. He’s leaning back a little in his chair now, more comfortable, like he knows he’s got Patrick. “Sure,” he says again, “I can buy you a drink. Or you could come back to my place and I could make you one there.”

“Woah,” Patrick says, laughing a little, because that was forward, more forward than he was expecting, and he takes the last swig of his beer. He goes from stunned to resolved in a second, full up on a sudden confidence he wasn’t sure he’d ever have. “Yeah, ok.” 

He wants to look for Jonny, tell him he’s leaving, but as he’s standing and grabbing his jacket he sees Jonny sitting at the bar, watching him, and Jonny just gives him a quick smile and a wave as he goes, like nothing weird happened at all. Like nothing weird is happening. 

Brian’s following close behind Patrick, and once they’re out the door he holds Pat’s elbow, pulls him back to turn around.

“Hey,” he says, softly, even though there’s no one nearby on the sidewalk, just a few people smoking by the alley. “I just want you to know I’m not a fucking asshole, ok? Like, I’m not…I just have a dumb celebrity crush on you and it seemed worth it to take a chance, but I don’t want you to be…worried.”

“I’m probably always gonna be a little worried,” Patrick says, but he appreciates the earnestness. He’s never been one of those guys who carries NDAs with him when he goes out because seriously, fuck that shit, but he had considered it, when he first thought about picking up guys. It would make sense now, maybe, but the thing is, if someone’s going to break an NDA, the damage is already going to be done, so. He never really saw the point. 

Pat leans into Brian a little, feels his hand tighten on Pat’s elbow, and he says low, right into Brian’s ear, “I’m sure you can find a few ways to distract me.”

It’s a terrible line and Brian laughs, but it breaks the tension. 

Brian keeps his hand on Pat’s elbow as they hail a cab, slides it down to his thigh on the way to his apartment. Pat is conscious of it the entire ride over, the warm weight of Brian’s hand on his leg, just high enough up that every time they turn a corner Pat’s breath catches in his throat, Brian’s fingers curling over the inseam on his jeans. The anticipation of it makes him hot all over, not even wanting Brian to move so much as just – that press of his hand feels so possessive and promising that Pat can barely look at him. 

Once they’re inside Brian gives him space, walks into the kitchen with Pat following him, tosses his jacket over a chair and grabs a couple glasses. 

“Water?” he says, and Pat nods, hopes Brian doesn’t notice that his hands are shaking a little when he reaches out for it, thankful it’s pretty dark inside the apartment. “Okay?” Brian asks after a second, and Patrick forces himself to take a deep breath, nods.

“Sorry,” he says, almost accidentally, then shakes his head at himself, takes a few sips of water. “I don’t…do this very much.”

“I figured,” Brian says, smiling a little, and then he sets his own glass of water down and takes a couple steps towards Patrick, slowly, until he’s right up in his space, and then he takes Patrick’s glass from his hand, too, and sets it down. Patrick likes the sureness in his movements, how sincere but confident they feel. Brian has for sure done this before. He has his hands on either side of Pat’s hips against the counter, crowding him in but leaving him a bit of room, and then he leans down a little, still so slow, and presses his lips to Patrick’s.

It’s good, steady and warm, and when Pat licks his own lips a little, Brian opens up to let him in, sliding a hand up to the back of Patrick’s neck and bracing his thumb against Pat’s jaw. He’s pressed closer now, other hand on Pat’s hip, slipping under the edge of his shirt, chests together. Patrick feels wrapped up in him, even more so since Brian’s bigger than him, boxing him in against the counter—it hits him hard, his nervousness edging away. The kiss is wetter now, still slow, but open-mouthed, and Patrick is compulsively running his tongue along the inside of Brian’s upper lip just for the little hitches in breath he gets each time. 

Patrick reaches back to tug on the brim of Brian’s hat, forces him to tilt his head back until the long line of his neck is there for Pat to explore, and he presses his lips wet against his jaw, his neck, and grazes his teeth under his ear, gratified to hear Brian’s sharp inhalation. Brian’s hand is on the small of his back, pressed against bare skin, his fingers dipping below the waistband of Patrick’s jeans. He pulls Pat even closer against him, sliding his thigh against Patrick’s dick and grinding in. “Fuck,” Patrick breathes out, and then sinks his teeth into Brian’s shoulder for a second. “Can we…I want you to be pressing me down into a mattress.”

“Shit,” Brian says, and for a second he’s pushing his full weight into Patrick: thigh pressed against Patrick’s dick, his back digging into the countertop, Brian’s hands squeezing his bare skin under his shirt, right at his ribs. Brian’s hands are big, Pat notices, for maybe the third time tonight. He’s feeling like maybe he has a thing he didn’t know he had. “Yeah, yeah, let’s do that.”

He backs up and turns, letting Patrick follow him again, and Pat tries to take in the details, but it’s a pretty basic apartment. Lived in, but Brian’s a dude’s dude for sure: pretty standard gaming set-up in the living room, a few cheaply framed photos on the hallway walls, and deep blue bedding. 

“What do you, uh, do?” Pat says, as they walk into the room. He stutters a little as Brian tosses his hat onto his desk and pulls off his shirt. Dude’s built, clearly cares about his body. Pat is around built dudes all the time, but he’s never spent much time looking. He feels embarrassed to be looking, even now; even with the calm, confident way Brian is presenting himself, the softness of his socked feet on his carpeting, the way his hair is mussed from the hat, from Pat messing around with it.

“I work construction,” Brian says, shrugging a little and undoing his belt, the button on his jeans. “Pretty basic shit.”

“It’s a good look on you,” Pat says, and grins a little when Brian laughs, catching his own tongue between his teeth.

“Thanks,” Brian says, and then he comes closer, runs a thumb along Pat’s bottom lip, just brushes against the tip of his tongue where Pat still has it sticking out a little, smiling stupidly, relaxing. The touch lights him up again, and he licks at Brian’s thumb, slow, and then sucks it into his mouth. Brian groans and slides his hands to Pat’s hips again.

“Can I?” Pat nods and Brian has his shirt off in a second, is kissing Pat while he gets his fly undone, biting a little at Pat’s lip and keeping it caught between his teeth while Pat closes his eyes, can’t help bucking a little at Brian’s hands sliding along his dick. Pat feels warm all over, suddenly shy in a way he isn’t usually about his body. 

“You bite your lips all the fucking time on TV, didja know that?” Brian says, voice rough. “It is fucking distracting, man. Hard to watch a game with your buddies when you’re thinking some dirty shit.”

Patrick laughs. Brian talking has calmed him down long enough that they’re both shirtless now, and Brian pushes his own jeans down, then Pat’s. Pat steps out of them and then just looks at Brian, runs his hands down his sides just to touch, and then lowers himself to his knees.

Brian just watches him, standing so still. 

Pat doesn’t waste much time, pulls Brian’s briefs down over his thighs so he can step out of them, gets his mouth on Brian’s dick quick, before he loses his nerve. 

He’s never done this so sober before, never done it just for the sake of it; mostly he’s just sucked dudes off while he fingered them open, part of prep but not the real focus. Brian’s cut, thick and long, proportional to his size, and Pat sucks the head into his mouth, just tasting, braces a hand around the back of Brian’s thigh. Mainly he’s just sloppy about it, running his tongue and his lips over the head, getting him wet, because he knows he has an oral fixation and he knows Brian’s into it. He waits for a second with Brian’s dick just on lower lip, sticks his tongue out to tease under the head and then sucks him in, and Brian finally moves his hand from where it’s been on Pat’s shoulder to tug on his curls, giving one thrust into Pat’s mouth like he can’t help it, and then tugging Pat off and up to his feet, pushing him over to the bed. 

“I’ll come too fast like that,” he says as he climbs over Pat, one knee between his.

Brian puts his hand back on Pat’s neck to cradle his jaw and tip his head back. He runs his tongue from his shoulder to his Adam’s apple, a wet line that he breathes over, making Pat shiver. Pat feels even more caged in now, Brian’s muscles straining to hold his weight up over Pat, the way his tanned arms contrast with the pale skin of Pat’s chest and stomach. It makes him feel small, and weirdly young, though they’ve gotta be the same age. Something to be said for first times, maybe, he thinks, and realizes then he already decided that he wants Brian to fuck him, doesn’t want to do it the other way around.

Brian’s running his hands over Pat, and when he tweaks a nipple, Pat keens. Brian grins, ducks his head to lick around Pat’s nipple. Pat feels oversensitive already, can’t help arching his hips for friction, but Brian just bites down sharply, then sucks the nipple into his mouth. When Pat reaches down to card a hand through his hair Brian pulls back a little and gathers Pat’s wrists up, pins them above his head. 

Pat has to close his eyes for a second and take a breath, feeling his dick twitch. 

“Okay?” Brian asks.

“Holy shit yes,” Pat says, opening his eyes to look at him and pressing his hips up, biting at Brian’s bottom lip instead of just kissing him, feeling grounded when Brian presses him down and takes over the kiss, making it wet and dirty. 

Pat’s never fucked anyone bigger than him, never fucked anyone who was strong enough to hold him down like this. Objectively he knew he was into Brian’s muscles, his arms and shoulders, the way he stood just a little taller than Patrick – things that he appreciated the aesthetics of. But this is something else entirely, the weight of him everywhere. Pat knows he could fight it, probably break the hold, but he really, really doesn’t want to, and warmth is pooling low in his stomach, his dick filling even more at the strength of it, and suddenly he’s worried he’s going to embarrass himself, with all the ways this is getting to him, and so fast. 

He feels like he’s been keyed up since Brian sat down across from him at the bar.

“Fuck,” Brian says, and bites down on Pat’s shoulder quickly. “Never figured you’d like being held down,” he says, breath hot on Pat’s neck, sucking a quick bruise into the spot right behind his ear. “Any time I thought about this I figured you’d want to be on top.” Brian stops for a second, runs one hand down Pat’s neck, down his chest, his thumb skimming Pat’s nipple, so sensitive Pat hisses out his next breath, and then reaching to tease his fingers along the edge of Pat’s waistband, right over his hip, through the hair low on his stomach. “Which I’m not opposed to. But I like the way you look under me.”

“Shit,” Pat says, mostly just a breath, can’t help picturing what they look like, Brian spread out over him, the way Pat’s own skin has to be flushed everywhere. 

He’s had a lot of chirping over the years about what he looks like, his lips, his eyes, how small he is, and a lot of it’s been dirtier than what Brian’s saying. He’s never liked it, always hated that he had something to prove himself against, but as Brian finally slips his hand over his dick, hard pressure from the base to the tip, rubbing his thumb hard just under the head, just a bit too much friction, Pat realizes he likes Brian’s voice, likes the idea of Brian imagining this. 

“Fuck, man, come on,” Pat says, trying to keep the whine out of his voice, straining against Brian’s hands pressing him into the bed, one still grasping his wrists and the other still just light pressure over his dick. He’s so hard that he almost feels like he’d be happy to just come right now, but then he thinks about Brian holding him down and fucking him, and he knows he wants that to happen, maybe twice. “I want you to fuck me,” he says, and the thing is, he’s not even trying to be sexy, or whatever, he just – he realizes it fully, completely, how badly he wants it, Brian’s dick pushing into him, filling him up. Pat’s fucked himself a few times, let girlfriends finger him if they were into it, but he’s always wondered what a dick would feel like, the heat of it, sometimes imagines what it would be like to let someone fuck him bare.

“Yeah,” Brian says, and he jacks Pat’s dick a couple more times before leaning back. Patrick still has his arms above his head, feels like jello, but eventually his brain comes back online long enough for him to help, getting his own underwear off. Then Brian’s back over him, and all the skin contact makes Pat flush even hotter, bucking his hips up so his dick rides along Brian’s dick, along his stomach. “How do you want it?” Brian says, and Pat is so overwhelmed that for a second he doesn’t even really get what Brian’s asking.

“Uh,” Pat starts, and then can’t keep going. Blinks a few times. Brian sits back, but keeps his hands on Pat’s skin, moving slowly.

Brian gives his hip a squeeze, a weirdly reassuring gesture, and then says, “The first time I ever let a dude fuck me it was on my hands and knees,” and Pat must go wide-eyed at that, because Brian chuckles a little. “Usually the most comfortable way,” he says. “You know, if it’s been a while.”

And now Pat laughs a little, like a sigh, realizing how tense he was feeling. He sort of wishes he wasn’t so easy for Brian to read – that Brian read his interest at the bar, that he can tell Pat’s never been fucked – but he appreciates it also. “Yeah,” he says, and then sits up to tug Brian into a kiss, slow at first, a thank you for the easy way Brian’s doing this, being patient but not coddling, but soon Brian is tugging on the hairs at the nape of his neck and Pat is arching back into it.

“Turn over,” Brian says, voice rough now, and Pat does, spreads his knees and rests his chest and face on a pillow, breathes deep. The sheets smell like Brian’s cologne, whatever it is, something that his sisters jokingly refer to as “Handsome Man Smell” when they find it as a candle, or a body wash. Pat’s into it. Pat hasn’t found anything about this yet that he isn’t into, actually. 

“I’ve thought about you like this,” Brian says, leaning past Pat to the bedside table, pulling out lube and a condom. “I thought about having you just like this, in my bed.” He circles a wet finger around Pat’s hole and Pat clenches despite himself, tries to force himself to let out a deep breath. Brian just keeps applying the same steady pressure in slow circles, and it feels good, even if it also feels like a tease. “Sometimes I thought about you riding me, getting to see your thighs, your tight nipples, watch you bite down on hard on your lip while you took my dick.”

“Fuck,” Pat says, just from the image of it, the idea of taking it like that, and then he swears again when Brian finally slides a finger in. He likes the feeling of being full, of being stretched, and likes that Brian’s in control. Brian, who is still talking as he slides a second finger into Patrick, slow and steady.

“Shit, look at you, taking it so well,” Brian says, and Pat groans a little, imaging what he looks like on his knees like this, face pressed into the pillow. “I can’t wait to see you spread open on my dick.”

“Jesus,” Pat says, muffled, and shifts his legs wider, shameless, pushing back. “Come on, man.”

Brian chuckles a little and keeps up the pace, slow. “I’m going to take my time, Patrick. Who knows if I’ll ever get to fuck an NHL star again?”

“I guarantee you won’t if you keep me waiting,” Pat says, snarky, and Brian outright laughs at him this time, but he does slide a third finger into him, and the press of it makes him gasp and clench down.

“Fuck,” Brian says, circles his fingers and then hits Pat’s prostate, keeps the circles up until Pat relaxes against him again. “I want to see how much you can take,” Brian says, and now Pat wants that, too. He settles into it, the slick slide of Brian’s fingers inside him. He’s still going slow but now he’s picking up a rhythm, and this is what Pat was waiting for, the feeling of being fucked open. “I’m going to be thinking about this whenever I watch you, now. Every time you score a goal, or they’re interviewing you at intermission, I’m just going to think about how you looked stretched open on my fingers, giving it up for me so good.”

Pat had no idea he was going to want to be talked through this, especially not this dirty shit, making Pat feel exposed and filthy. He’s completely lost in it, just listening to what Brian’s saying, his whole body focused in on where Brian’s fingers are sliding him open. Everything’s settled into this slick slide now, just pressure and the feeling of being fucked, of being full, and just when Pat feels like he’s going to start begging, Brian nudges his pinky finger up against his hole. Just the implication of it, of being that open, makes Pat shiver all over, so hard he knows Brian must see it. 

“Yeah?” Brian says, and Pat nods before he realizes that’s not helpful and manages to croak out his assent. Pat feels like they’re both holding their breath as Brian presses against him, and suddenly there are four fingers inside him and Pat feels completely reduced to physical sensations, all of his attention focused on that stretch, the way he feels stuck in place by it.

“Oh jesus,” he says, soft, and cants his hips back until Brian is as deep as he can go. “Jesus, fuck me, please.”

Brian rotates his wrist, gives Pat such a firm pressure against his prostate that he whines, and then pulls out, leaving Patrick gasping. There’s just the sound of Brian tearing a condom packet open, and Pat adjusts his stance a little, spreading his knees wider and shifting his weight, checking in with his body, feeling the stretch in his hips, the tension in his shoulders. Brian’s back in a second, spreading him open with one hand before positioning his dick against Patrick. He feels wet and open, gaping, but he knows it can’t be that extreme, and then Brian’s working his dick inside with these slow rocking thrusts. Pat breathes through it, let Brian do what he wants, tries to adjust to the feeling even though it feels good, and he’s impatient for more.

When Brian is finally all the way inside him he slides one hand along Pat’s back up to his shoulder as he pulls out, says, “You good?” and barely waits for Pat to nod before pulling Pat back onto his dick.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck.” Pat is barely hearing himself, just letting Brian pull him back again and again, one hand braced on his hip and the other on his shoulder. He’s so hard and there’s no friction on his dick, still braced on his elbows, but on a particularly hard thrust he gives in and lets himself sink lower. It forces Brian to follow the movement, so that he’s got his hand planted beside Patrick, covering him with his body. 

Patrick is face-first on the mattress and feels wrung-out with it already, with letting someone just use his body. It feels so good, the thick press of Brian’s dick inside him, his heavy weight along Pat’s back, the way his dick feels against the sheets, finally. He feels like he could come like this, just from this, but then Brian’s grinding in deep and circling his hips and coming, huffing out a breath against the back of Pat’s neck and then sinking his teeth in quick, a sharp sting that makes Patrick jerk under him, feeling like he’s so close to the edge himself. Brian pulls back and then presses his hand to Pat’s hip.

“Wait,” he says, and Pat actually stops jerking his hips against the bed, somehow, and then Brian is rolling him over onto his back and sitting lower on the bed so he can get his mouth on Pat’s dick. Pat lasts about thirty fucking seconds with Brian’s mouth on him, one hand slick on the base of his dick, the other low, thumbing at his open hole, before he’s coming. He barely manages to warn Brian, who pulls off and jerks him until Pat’s stomach is covered. He’s a fucking mess, and that’s a thing he’s into, he realizes, being this sloppy, the way Brian’s still pressing at his hole.

“Well shit,” he says, breathless, and Brian laughs and pulls back, takes off the condom, and then lies next to Patrick, close.

“Yeah?” he says, and rolls his neck to look at Patrick. “Good?”

“Fuck, dude, more than good.” He stops for a second, and takes a breath. “It’s weird to thank someone for sex, but – thank you.” Pat feels kind of overwhelmed with the emotion of it, for a second, feels all of fucking fifteen, like the first time he ever had sex and he felt like crying because it was kind of a lot. He’d gotten over it quickly, shifted it to something else in his brain so it didn’t always feel so personal and so intimate. But this was different, right back to that feeling of uncertainty, of exposure.

“It feels weirder to say you’re welcome,” Brian says, grinning, “So I’ll just say thank you, too, man. Definitely fulfilled a long-time fantasy, there.”

“You’re welcome,” Pat says, smirking, and Brian slaps his hand down on Patrick’s chest, calls him an asshole. Pat falls asleep like that, sticky and wrung out, Brian warm next to him, a solid, intimate presence.

****

In the locker room at the start of training camp Jonny stops by his stall while he’s settling in and says hey, then just stops and stares at him. 

Pat had said a distracted hey back, looking for his stick tape in his bag, but when Jonny just stays hovering for a minute, Pat looks up at him. “What, dude?” 

Jonny doesn’t say anything, just reaches out to palm Pat’s neck. Pat still has a bruise behind his ear from Brian, who had bitten at it again that morning, like he wanted to make sure the bruise stuck. Jonny’s applying firm pressure, and Pat sucks in a sharp breath at Jonny’s touch, the pain going straight to his dick in a way that embarrasses him. 

The moment’s way too intimate all of a sudden, Jonny standing so close, his big hand cupping Pat’s neck, warm and dry. “What the fuck, Jonny.”

Jonny’s been giving him that weird dead-eye stare, his eyes dark and focused, mouth open a little like it happens when he’s lost in thought. Finally he seems to bring himself out of it, dropping the pressure, dropping his hand away and taking a quick step back. “Shit. Sorry.” He actually shakes his head a little at himself, and then grins. “Nice hickey.” He says it loud enough that everyone hears, obviously his fucking plan, and sure enough, Sharpy comes over.

“A hickey, huh?” Sharpy says, and then he boxes Pat in despite his protests and repeats Jonny’s move, not so soft, turning Pat’s neck. He whistles. “Nice one, good colour, nice size. Almost got away with it with the placement, but…”

“Fuck off,” Pat says, irritable now, thrown off balance from Tazer’s weirdness, for the second time in as many days. He shakes Sharpy off and tugs on his hair, his hat, like he has any hope of actually hiding it now.

“Don’t be mad, Peeks, I’m giving it a solid 7.5.”

“I’d give it an 8,” Seabs says, tilting his head from his spot a little further down the bench, grinning. “Pretty fucking purple. Can see it from here.”

“Also, are those teeth marks?” Duncs asks from beside him, and Patrick tries to come up with a better comeback than just giving them all the finger. Duncs just whacks his hand away and leans in closer. “Oh yeah, definitely teeth marks. For sure worth an 8.”

“Damn, Peeks, who was this girl?” Sharpy asks, sitting down on the bench across from Patrick. And Patrick just – freezes. He was so busy being disgruntled at the chirping he completely fucking forgot to be worried about the whole gay thing.

He can feel himself flushing, panicking a little, and he can’t come up with anything to say. “That stacked brunette from the bar, right?” Jonny says, looking at him. “Looked like she could bench press you?”

Pat’s so relieved he doesn’t even roll his eyes. He’s thankful that Jonny’s skirting so close to the truth. “Well, it’s not like it’d be that hard,” Sharpy says, and Patrick groans.

“I’d like to see you try, asshole,” he says, and immediately regrets it as Sharpy grins.

“Any time, Kaner, that sounds like fun.”

“Sounds like an embarrassing upper body injury is what it sounds like,” Jonny says, in that chiding captain tone of his, and then Sharpy’s needling at him and Pat takes a second to just – breathe. He stops putting his gear on, and doesn’t realize he’s pressing his hand against his neck, against the bruise, until Jonny’s in front of him again. 

“Come on,” Jonny says, already dressed, tapping his stick against Pat’s shin pads. “Hustle up.” His voice is low, a little strained, but he grins at Pat, real quick, when Pat makes eye contact.

“Yeah, yeah,” Pat says, and then, as Jonny starts to walk away, “Thanks, man.”

“Yeah, Pat,” Jonny says, and then leaves the dressing room.

****

The rest of camp is normal. Pat thinks about calling Brian and decides not to approximately seventeen times a day, running his hand over his phone so often he feels like a teenage girl. Apparently it’s become a noticeable tic, too, because he and Jonny are out for lunch one day and Jonny grabs the phone out of Pat’s hand without ever glancing away from the ball game. 

“You’re driving me fucking crazy,” he says mildly, like this is the simple fact of Jonny’s burden: spending time with Pat. He keeps his palm pressed flat over Pat’s phone. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Fuck no,” Pat says, quick and embarrassed, but then Jonny does look at him, taking another bite of his salad and raising an eyebrow at Pat. “Ah, shit. I don’t know whether to call that guy or not.”

Jonny looks honestly shocked. He puts his fork down, glances around the restaurant, and then says, “That’s, uh. That’s something.”

Pat nods a few times and takes a bite of his sandwich, waiting for Jonny to say more. Jonny doesn’t. “Okay, well, good talk, Tazer, thanks.”

Jonny huffs out a little laugh at that, picks up his fork, puts it down again. Jonny has this thing where when he has something serious to say it’s like he has to give it his full attention. Sometimes they’re walking down the street and Jonny will have to stop in the middle of the sidewalk to explain some shit about the powerplay, or he’ll be trying to sort out his own feelings about a girlfriend and he’ll sit real still on the couch at one of their places, put his phone down, put his beer down, whatever. Pat’s even watched him do it on phone calls with people, his mom or his brother, sitting down somewhere and staying there until the conversation is done. This is how Pat knows he’s got Jonny’s full attention, right now. 

“That’s a big step,” Jonny says, finally, and then pauses again. Pat fights the urge to fidget in his seat, tries to take another bite of his sandwich and finds he can’t, mouth suddenly dry. He feels nervous about whatever Jonny’s judgment on this is, like he isn’t a full-grown man waiting for love life advice from his best friend. “I take it the other night went well?”

“Yeah,” Pat says, wanting to leave it at that, but then he grins at Jonny, wicked. “He could probably bench press me.”

Jonny does laugh at that, looks a little chagrined. “Sorry, but. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think you should go for it, then.”

Patrick is surprised. He doesn’t know what he was expecting Jonny to say, but it wasn’t that. “Yeah?” He’s not happy with how tentative it comes out, how his voice cracks a little on the single syllable. Goddamn but he is getting all worked up about this, about the overwhelming idea of it, of trying to date a dude, of Jonny’s quiet, firm approval. Overwhelmed by how much Jonny’s approval apparently fucking means to him.

Jonny nods. “Yeah, Pat,” he says, too soft, and Patrick blinks a few times, looks down. “It was good, you have his number, he seemed like he was into you and not just, like…the fame, or what the fuck ever. Same shit as with girls.”

“Okay,” Pat says, and then he does pick up his sandwich and turns his head to look at the game, just to check the score, to give himself a moment.

“You want your phone back?”

“I’m not calling him right now, jackass,” Patrick says, shaking his head at Jonny, and Jonny smirks at him.

“Just thought you might want the help.”

“Oh yeah? You got a lot of experience asking dudes out?” Patrick asks.

“Can’t be that hard,” Jonny says, still fucking with him, dumb smile on his face. 

“Oh baby, it can be real hard,” Patrick says, waggling his eyebrows at Jonny, and Jonny groans, flicks a piece of cucumber at him. “You brought that on yourself.”

“I did,” Jonny agrees, and then slides his phone back across the table. “Let me know how it goes.”

****

Brian is what Pat’s mom would call salt of the earth, would call Good People in an approving tone, with a firm nod, maybe. Truthfully, Pat doesn’t think too much about what it might mean, to have his Mom’s opinion of Brian. It’s like his brain just gives him a blank wall when he tries to envision that future moment. The thing is – Pat has no idea if he and Brian are dating, doesn’t even know what that would look like. They’re definitely fucking. They’re fucking a lot, and Pat is into it. But he’s also ridiculously into the times they go watch a game, or cook a meal together, or sit and drink beers and shoot the shit. Pat likes hearing about Brian’s day, the work he does, the workplace dramas.

“The little people,” Brian jokes one night, and Pat throws a wadded up napkin at him from across the table.

“Fuck you,” he says, flushing a little, because he didn’t mean it that way but also he kind of meant it that way, the normalness of it all. Brian just laughs at him, like he knows.

But Pat’s not…he doesn’t know how to ask. With girls, they’ve brought it up. Pat hates that it feels like a girl thing to have the talk, to be the one to bring it up. It doesn’t make him feel any kind of way to be the one getting fucked on the regular – well, it makes him feel some kind a way, just not in a bad way – but the talking feels too fucking hard.

“So do I get to meet him?” Jonny asks, abruptly, as they’re sitting down for lunch at this hippie place Jonny loves and Pat tolerates.

“Meet him,” Pat says, so shocked he forgets to inflect, and Jonny grins at him.

“Yeah, Pat. Meet him. Your beau.”

“My beau,” Pat repeats, but this time he remembers to put as much sarcasm into the word as he can.

“You just gonna repeat everything I say?” And for one second Pat is tempted to do it, just repeat that whole sentence, but sometimes Pat pretends to be an adult. Jonny has never once asked to meet a girlfriend. But Pat probably would have invited a girlfriend out by now, to meet the team, a dinner, or drinks, or something. Brian’s never even implied he might be interested, even as bros, despite being a Hawks fan. “Pat?”

“Yeah,” Pat says, and then, “No.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t get to meet him?”

“I don’t know if he’s…if we’re…beaus.” Pat pauses. “And who the fuck says beaus anyway, Tazer, jesus.”

“You don’t know if you’re…dating?” Jonny sounds deeply skeptical. “You see him all the time. Like, you see him more than you see me, these days. And I assume you’re not just…” Jonny struggles to find the word, makes a disappointed face at himself and finishes with “Chilling.”

“No we are not,” Pat says, idly rubbing at his chest, right near his nipple, where he knows he still has hickies fading. (It’s a thing. Who knew.)

Jonny tracks the movement, flushes slightly before looking up at him again. “Ok, so…”

“I don’t know how to talk to him about it.”

“Patrick,” Jonny starts, and that’s not good, Jonny never uses his full name. He looks vaguely pained. “Come on, buddy. Man up.” Patrick takes a second to appreciate the Jonny-ness of it all, the simultaneous disappointment and simplicity of his pep talk.

“It just feels so…high school. Like, what do I say? ‘Hey, man, are we going steady?’”

Jonny smirks. “You could give him your letterman jacket. One of the cup rings?”

“I’m not fucking proposing,” Pat grumbles, already done with this conversation, and Jonny’s smirk gets even bigger.

“You’d propose to someone with a cup ring?”

“I mean, no, but-” Pat starts, because no, obviously, that’s insane, except the only person he could do that with would be Jonny, it would be weird and symbolic, and now he is so far outside reality he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He hates when his brain does shit like that, just gets so far ahead of the way he normally lets himself think, like there is even an alternate universe where him and Jonny is a thing, let alone romantic motherfuckers who give symbolic gifts and get fucking engaged.

“Like, how would you pick which one?”

“You suck,” Pat says, which is not his best comeback, but will have to do.

Jonny’s face softens. “You just gotta ask, Peeks. Have the conversation. There’s no trick to this.”

“Sure,” Pat says. “This coming from a dude whose last relationship ended because he couldn’t commit.” 

As soon as he’s said it, he regrets it. Jonny looks down, takes a sip from his water, but it’s just ice cubes. Suddenly it’s Jonny, Pat, and this empty silence, heavy on the table, that Jonny is just crunching his way through. Pat would give anything to go back to his own mortification for a minute. He’d forgotten they weren’t talking about that; that for all they’ve become weirdly close this summer, in their conversations, in all the feelings bullshit they’ve been talking about, they haven’t talked much about Lindsey. 

“Jonny, hey, Jon. I’m sorry. That was a dumb thing to say. I obviously don’t have any room to talk.”

“It’s fine, Kaner,” Jonny says, and he makes eye contact at the waitress, signals for the bill with that dumb little hand gesture everyone uses.

“Jonny,” Pat says, hoping if he starts he’ll figure out the right way to apologize. “You wanna talk about it?”

Jonny snorts. “Not really,” he says. For a second Pat is terrified that Jonny’s going to leave it at that, just walk out of the restaurant all mad, but then he sighs and sinks down in his chair a bit, widens his legs and sprawls out. Pat hadn’t realized Jonny had been holding himself so tight until he watched that move. “There’s not much to say. I told you and Sharpy the whole story, basically – she wanted to get married, and I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you?” Pat asks, and Jonny shrugs.

“I don’t know,” he says finally, “but that wasn’t really good enough.”

“Yeah,” Pat says, and then, “I’m sorry, man. I know that you – I know how important that relationship was. But if it didn’t feel like it was all there, maybe it’s for the best?”

“Probably,” Jonny says. “But it is a little lonely right now. Weird transition.”

“You have me,” Pat says, trying for joking and sounding painfully sincere instead, wincing at it.

“I do have you,” Jonny agrees, and he sounds pretty sincere, too, so Pat’ll take it.

****

Pat tells himself he will have an honest to god conversation with Brian and talk about his feelings and shit, but then the preseason starts and Pat’s brain is wrapped up in hockey all the time. He’s doing a ton of media, playing a bit, feeling great to be back on the ice. Just to complicate things, it’s the ten year anniversary of Jonny and Pat’s rookie year – it’s their ten year anniversary, basically, and it’s weird as fuck and it isn’t doing anything to help with Pat’s pining.

Sharpy snorts from his spot in the locker room, and flips the screen on his phone around to show Pat. “You guys just look so fucking cute,” he says, and Pat can see that it’s the Blackhawks clips of their dumb photoshoot, with the 1988 balloons. It is so cheesy, and Pat quietly, deep in his heart, loves it a lot. “Do you think the ‘Hawks would put something together like this for my 10-year anniversary with Abby?”

“Who says she’ll keep you that long?” Crow asks mildly, and Sharpy throws a wad of sock tape at him as he laughs.

“No love is as pure as ours, anyway,” Pat says, going for silly and lofty but accidentally catching Jonny’s eye halfway through and choking on it a little.

“It’s true,” Jonny says, seriously. “What have you an Abby really produced together?”

“You mean other than two beautiful children?” Sharpy asks, indignant, and Jonny just waves his hand dismissively. Pat realizes that he’s never actually felt as close to Jonny as he does these days, like somehow after ten years – holy shit, an entire decade – his irritation that grew into begrudging friendship and then into a pesky crush has become one of the most solid relationships of his life. Jonny is just always _there_ , hovering on his peripheral, in one way or another.

A couple days later in an interview a reporter asks Pat what the ideal number of preseason games is to play, and before Pat can say anything, Jonny is yelling from off-screen, “All of ‘em,” which is so fucking Jonny that Pat can’t help the fond smile that takes over his face, barely even remembers what he answered. He watches the playback of it later, more than once, and is frankly astonished for something like the hundredth time that no one’s figured him out yet. Pat expected to get chirped by the guys but then it never happened; everyone’s all over Tazer and his fucking unbelievable enthusiasm.

Jonny just shrugs every time, unabashed. “I just fucking love hockey, man,” he says, and Pat knows that same dumb smile is on his face listening to him, bites his lip to try to reign it in.

****

By the time the preseason’s over and it’s opening night, Pat’s barely seen Brian, but he hasn’t really been thinking about it; he’s buzzing with the feeling of hockey being back, of playing at home. They had a miserable fucking showing in the playoffs last year and it feels important to start strong, especially since they’re playing the Pens, back-to-back champs, and even though the Hawks have a great record against the Pens it still feels like proving something.

It’s an electric game. From that first pass to Hartman, Pat feels like he’s completely and totally in it, like he can feel the season stretching out before him. The spinorama’s showing off, maybe, but it works, and Pat grins at Schmaltzy doing his own celly at him in the corner. Up by four goals before the first half of the first period is done. By the end of the game he’s happy for Sharpy’s first goal back, for Saader, but also really fucking high on the win himself. Jonny gets a couple assists, including that perfect fucking one-touch into the zone to assist on Pat’s goal, and gets Saader the hatty, but he’s so ecstatic in the dressing room after the game you’d think he had the hat trick himself. 

Pat can’t stop watching Jonny, how he can’t stop smiling, and he thinks about to their conversation in the summer, Jonny’s quiet confidence that this year was going to be better. Pat knows that one game doesn’t tell you anything about the season – the Avs had a killer pre-season last year – but it feels like a pretty symbolic start and they’re going to celebrate.

At the bar Sharpy gets some of the kids in on playing his stupid game, the everyday super powers one, and Pat feels gratified when Saad groans and rolls his eyes next to him. Pat laughs, nudging him. “You missed him, admit it,” he says, and Saad grins.

“I thought we weren’t saying that within earshot of him,” Jonny says, sitting on Saad’s other side, but he’s grinning too, sleeves pushed up to his elbows and leaning on the table to see Pat. He’s still flushed a little, the line from his helmet just visible, almost faded completely, and Pat catches himself staring for a quick second.

“Nice hatty, Saader,” Pat says, “Graceful finish on that last one for both of you.” Saader had gone crashing into the net and Jonny had run into the net when it was knocked off, but the goal was in so it didn’t really matter that much.

“Oh, fuck off,” Jonny says, laughing.

“I swear you spend more time on the ice falling than skating.” This is a longstanding joke, that Jonny’s clumsy on the ice, and it may be a little true. Pat thinks it’s more that he just throws himself into everything so completely he sometimes forgets that he has brakes, or he’s usually past the point of them helping.

“Jesus, not this again,” Jonny says, taking a sip of beer, and Saader claps him on the shoulder.

“Some things never change,” he says, and Jonny just shakes his head ruefully.

Two beers in and Pat’s still buzzing under his skin, listening to the boys chatter around him. They have an off day tomorrow and Pat watches Jonny for a minute, talking to Seabs about something – Jonny’s garden, maybe – and then he texts Brian. Brian had texted him throughout the game, nothing major, just comments on the plays and a whole lot of expletives, which makes Pat grin. Brian’s genuine love for good hockey is something that really works for Pat, even though he knows it’s maybe a little narcissistic. Pat checks to see if he’s still up and then makes his excuses when Brian says he is, and then, shortly after, just come over. 

Jonny watches Pat as he gathers his things. When Pat finally makes eye contact with him, Jonny says, “Ask,” and Pat rolls his eyes as he heads out.

Afterwards, lying in bed and starting to drift off, Pat wants to bring it up. The words are on the tip of his tongue and he means to talk to Brian.

But he can’t do it. Pat hates feeling on such unsteady footing, not knowing what Brian wants or what the normal way of doing this shit is, if it’s different with dudes, if all that crap about hookup culture is legit or just homophobic BS. Brian hasn’t said anything in particular to indicate that he’s had any serious relationship with other dudes; he’s mentioned exes but always so casually, and so far most of what he and Pat do is what could pretty easily be qualified as buddyfucking. 

He’s awake long after Brian falls asleep.

****

Pat invites Brian to a game, gives him a couple tickets so he can bring a friend and tries not to panic about how much Brian’s friends may or may not know. He doesn’t put them up with the WAGs because that feels weird as hell, but they’re good seats anyway and he knows Brian’ll be pumped. He knows this isn’t the same thing as having a talk, but he still doesn’t know how to do that, what he wants to say, exactly, but he does want Brian to be there, watching him play, and to know that Brian’s there for him. Pat wants Brian to meet the guys, too, in part for Brian – who is a diehard fan, Pat has found out, even though he tries to explain that the boys are pretty much a bunch of losers off the ice – but also because he’s important to Pat and the team’s important to Pat. Even if they won’t know why it’s important for them to meet Brian, it’s important to him all the same.

Brian and his friends are all wearing Hawks merch, probably so they can get it signed, but Pat doesn’t realize until after the game that Brian’s wearing his jersey. 

He goes out to find Brian in the hallway, thanks the Hawks staff member who’d brought them down from the box, and sees Brian with his back to him, his last name and 88 stamped on the back. It makes his breath catch for a second, a weird, fierce zing of possessiveness rushing through him that he didn’t expect. 

He walks up and claps Brian on the back, says, “Nice jersey” with a smirk and hope it covers up the way he’s flushed from it. From the look Brian gives him, it’s a lost cause; he smirks right back and introduces the three guys he brought with him. None of them look gay, Pat thinks, and then thinks of him and Brian and realizes he should probably check his own assumptions about this shit at some point. “Alright, wanna meet some assholes?” he asks, and the guys laugh and follow him into the room.

By this point most of the guys are changed, just dicking around – it was a solid game, a win in regulation. Not nearly as fancy as that first game, but they’ve been holding their own, and Pat knows everyone is happy with the way things have just been fitting together, finally. He introduces the guys around and his teammates happily sign hats and jerseys. Brian’s friends are wearing an old Sharp jersey, a Tazer jersey, and a Crow jersey, so everyone feels appreciated except the defensive corps. 

“You know him wearing your jersey doesn’t count, eh?” Jonny says, leaning next to Pat. They’re both watching Brian and his friends laughing with Sharpy and Brinksy; Pat would bet they’re playing the dumb game. He’d told Brian about it and has no doubt that Brian brought it up.

“He had that jersey before,” Pat says, indignant. Him and Jonny have a longstanding debate about who has the most fans in the city of Chicago and they keep a lazy tally when they’re out in the city.

“Sure, bud, sure,” Jonny says. “You didn’t just have one signed and waiting for him the morning after?”

“Jesus,” Pat laughs. “You think I’m a real asshole.”

“Yeah, showtime, I sure do,” Jonny says, and just laughs and leans into it when Pat goes to push him.

“Hey Kaner, are we bringing your buds out with us, or what?” Sharpy says, loudly enough that the invite is a given, and Pat nods as he walks over to them. 

He puts his hand on Brian’s shoulder again, but only after a split second where he almost touches his arm, his wrist. Pat hadn’t realized how unconscious those little touches had gotten, but he and Brian don’t spend a ton of time out in public together, and Pat doesn’t often have to think too hard about it. They’re usually alone, and here they aren’t, but Pat kind of wishes he didn’t have to think about it all the same. He wants to be standing closer to Brian. 

For months Pat has just been playing it by ear, still thinking of it as experimenting, and now he knows, with a weird sinking feeling, that he actually wants this, in a real way. He wishes Brian could hang out with the WAGs, that it wouldn’t be a big deal for him to visit post-game, that Brian wearing his jersey was a regular thing. He wishes he could tell Sharpy, and the rest of the boys, the way everyone’s always been excited to introduce the team to their girlfriends.

Instead he just presses close to Brian, quick, and squeezes his shoulder. “Coming out for a drink?”

And Brian looks down at him, smiles, and nods, and when they turn to leave he puts his hand on Pat’s elbow to steer him along, just like he did that first night.

 

****

Pat doesn’t mean to keep Brian and Jonny away from each other, not really, but he is thankful that it happens. Sharpy’s a pain but he’s not suddenly going to know to give Brian a talking-to, and Pat can’t help but worry that Jonny might feel the need to interrogate Brian about his intentions out of nowhere. So Brian and his boys hang out with Sharpy and the rookies, and Pat sits next to Brian but keeps most of his attention down at the other end of the table, where the core is chatting. 

“No one makes videos to our great love,” Duncs is saying, and Seabs is nodding along.

“Careful what you wish for, man,” Pat says. “I’ll tell my sisters and they’ll have fifteen videos for you in an hour.”

“There are probably videos devoted just to your beard, Seabs,” Jonny says, and Saader snorts into his beer.

“I wish they’d make fan videos about my shot blocking,” Seabs says sadly, and Duncs pats him on the back.

“You might need to improve on your shot blocking, then,” Pat says, and leans out of Seabs’ reach when he tries to punch him.

“We’re a dynamic duo, asshole,” Duncs says, and Jonny rolls his eyes.

“Right, how long have you guys been married?”

“I don’t know if you want to start with me on that one, bro,” Seabs says, and waves a hand pointedly between Pat and Jonny. “Or I’ll start talking about the great love that knows no bounds.”

Pat offers to buy the next round just to get out of that conversation, and Jonny stands to help him. He’s leaning next to Pat at the bar and looking back at the table, and Pat can feel him waiting to say something. “What, Jonny,” he says, not looking over.

“He’s cute,” Jonny says, and Pat can feel his eyes on him. “Hot. He’s hot.”

“Your appreciation is noted.”

Jonny turns around so he’s facing Pat and slides a hand to his elbow, gives him a shake until Pat looks at him. “I’m not trying to do anything. You don’t have to sound pissed. He seems nice.” Jonny grins, crooked. “You won’t let me talk to him, so I don’t know for sure if he’s nice, but.”

Pat rolls his eyes. “You can talk to him, no one’s stopping you.”

“I know strategic seating when I see it, Kaner,” Jonny says, and then their beer is there and Pat doesn’t have to dignify that with a response. 

Pat mostly chats to Jonny and them for the night, but when he can he slides a hand onto Brian’s thigh under the table. He’s mainly just looking for the point of contact, likes when their arms brush but likes this more, even though it’s riskier. 

Pat has one ear on their conversation but it’s mostly shop-talk, Brian’s friend obviously a big fan of Sharpy, asking about Dallas and the team there, the transition, all that. Brian turns into Pat a couple times to ask his opinion on something, or when Sharpy’s teasing him, but he keeps his body neutral, like he’s just as aware of where each part of them is touching as Pat is. Pat can feel Jonny’s eyes on them the whole time, gaze dark, and once or twice Pat looks up from talking to Saader to see Jonny just watching Brian, listening to that side of the table’s conversation pretty intently. It unsettles Pat a little, all of Jonny’s sharp focus on something Pat hasn’t even wanted to look too hard at himself.

Brian leaves sort of early, after a couple rounds, begging off because he has to work early the next day, and Pat follows him out. He’s just drunk enough to not worry too much about being discreet, presses up to kiss Brian right there on the sidewalk, just barely in the shadows along the building. “Hey,” Brian says, soft, and pulls him close by his jacket for a second to kiss him hard. “I really do have to work in the morning.”

“I’m really glad you came.” Pat steps back, tucks his hands in his pockets. “Glad the boys got to meet you.”

Brian eyes him for a second. “Do they…?”

“No,” Pat says, then amends, “Well, Jonny does.”

“I figured,” Brian replies, and then he’s kissing Patrick again and walking towards a cab. “I’ll call you, Pat.”

When Pat goes back inside the boys are winding down already, a couple of them getting up to leave, and Seabs claps him on the shoulder and says, “It was nice to meet your friend, Kaner,” in this careful, firm way that makes Pat feel caught out and reassured all at once.

“Yeah,” Pat says faintly, and Seabs just shakes his shoulder and heads out.

He settles back in at the table and lets the comfortable flow of conversation ease over him. He misses the guys when they’re all apart in the summer, this easy camaraderie that changes bit by bit every year. He knows how lucky they are to have the core group together: Seabs, Duncs, Hoss, Crow, and him and Jonny, and having Saad and Sharpy back feels even better. It feels like a group of people who could win the Cup again this year, but it also feels like a group of people who’ll quietly accept Pat, no matter what.

****

They’re out celebrating one of the rookies’ first goals, practically the whole team at a bar in Edmonton. Most of the guys are drunker than Pat probably should have let them get, but technically that’s usually Jonny’s job, or Seabs or Duncs - captaincy means babysitting, sometimes. Sharpy’s holding court and it takes second to find Jonny in the crowd, tucked in the corner of a bench seat. 

“Hey, Jonny, what’s up?” Pat says, sliding in next to him. Jonny’s sitting alone, the other guys clustered mostly at the other end of the table. 

While Sharpy’s been telling his dumb stories Jonny’s been getting quieter and quieter. Usually Jonny’s all business when the season’s on, only really goes for it if they’ve got a few days off, or it’s been a particularly good night. But now he’s listing to the side a little, and Pat nudges him with his shoulder as he presses up against him. 

“Jonny,” Pat says, and then again, so Jonny finally looks up. “Come on, man, what happened? We were having a good time.”

“I don’t like fucking up,” Jonny says abruptly, looking down at his glass again. Pat realizes he has no idea how much Jonny’s had to drink, but a solid guess would be too many.

“You’re not fucking up,” Pat says, and he means it, even though he’s not sure where this is coming from. 

He can’t think of a single time he’s looked at Jonny and thought Jonny was doing objectively the wrong thing. Sometimes, sure, he was doing things Pat didn’t understand, or things Pat wouldn’t do himself. But Jonny is a person who has strength in his convictions, always thinks things through, and Pat respects that about him. Right now, especially, he has no fucking clue what Jonny’s talking about. They’ve had a good start to the season, Jonny and Saad are clicking again, it’s good to have Sharpy back on the ice and in the room, even if it means they’re going to get pranked more than they have past couple years, and their overall record’s pretty good considering their off-season changes.

Jonny laughs a little, still looking down, and then he looks up and fixes Pat with that intense look, all focus, stops rolling his glass between his hands and sets it down firmly on the table. “I meant – I mean with Lindsey, I fucked up. I don’t like failing at things, but especially…I don’t like not knowing why.” He pauses, presses his hands flat against the wood. “But also with you. I don’t know that I’ve handled the stuff with…with you and Brian very well.”

“Tazer, Jonny – you’ve been great about Brian. About all of it. Since the beginning,” Pat says, because it’s the truth. He’s confused, can’t figure out what the fuck Jonny’s talking about. “I couldn’t— I wouldn’t have gone home with him if it weren’t for you. I’d probably never have done that in Chicago. Not until I retired, maybe.”

Jonny smiles a little bit, barely. “Yeah. Ok, well, good. But still.”

“But still what, Jonny?” Pat is maybe too drunk for this conversation. He should have known it when it started.

“Pat,” Jonny says, and it’s soft and low, and then Jonny is sliding his hand up Pat’s arm and across his shoulder, resting it on his neck like he did months ago, that first week after Pat met Brian. His thumb is a light pressure against Pat’s pulse and he swallows without meaning to, eyes fixed on Jonny’s. Jonny is and always has been a weirdly touchy-feely kinda guy, so Pat is chalking this up to that, Jonny’s way of connecting with people, a constant grounding force. 

But then Jonny slides his hand up a little further and runs his thumb over Pat’s bottom lip, so slow that Pat can’t help but slide his eyes shut for a second. All he can hear is his own dumb heartbeat, too fast, and knows Jonny can probably feel it too, that this is giving Pat away more than anything else. When he opens them again Jonny hasn’t moved at all, still just looking at him, and Pat’s holding his breath. He wants to ask Jonny what the fuck is going on, wants to suck Jonny’s finger into his mouth, wants to –

“He-eeey,” Sharpy says, starting strong and trailing off as they shift apart from each other, Jonny dropping his hand so suddenly he almost knocks over Patrick’s glass. Pat hadn’t even realized Sharpy had stopped talking to the rookies. 

“So I’m going to head out,” Jonny says, and drops a handful of bills on the table and slides out around the other side of the table.

“Well?” Sharpy says, putting a couple glasses of water down on the table.

“What?” Pat says, and Sharpy rolls his eyes.

“Fucking follow him, dumbass,” Sharpy says, and Pat just follows the order, unthinkingly, even though it probably is worth asking Sharpy how the fuck he knows. He barely manages to catch Jonny getting into a cab and slides in after him.

They don’t talk for a couple seconds, and when Pat gives his address Jonny doesn’t give his. 

Pat doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, really, but he lets it rest in the back of the cab, through the lobby of his building, in the elevator, and is opening his mouth to say something, finally, anything, just standing in his front hallway, but— 

Jonny presses him against the wall and kisses him. 

It takes Pat completely by surprise. There have been so many times that he’s been close to Jonny and thought about kissing him, about leaning in, has caught himself staring at Jonny’s mouth completely lost in the fantasy of it. But he wasn’t expecting this, has never, in any of his fantasies, imagined Jonny making the first move, and by the time he’s figured out what the fuck is happening Jonny is pulling back. He stays close, though, tips his forehead against Pat’s and keeps him boxed in against the wall. 

“Okay?” Jonny says, and Pat forces himself to breathe in and out a few times, bring his brain back online.

Pat means to just say yes but that’s not what comes out. “Jonny, what are you…you’re not gay.”

Jonny shrugs a little, a weirdly familiar gesture even though Pat can feel it pressed up against him this time, the way his own body moves a little with Jonny’s. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

“You’ve been thinking about it,” Pat repeats dumbly, trying to figure out what that means, what he wants to ask. “You just woke up one day and thought, Hey, why don’t I give that a try?”

Jonny smirks and takes a half step away from Pat, gives him enough space that he can think again. “You were making it look so fun.”

Pat rolls his eyes. “Come on, Jonny, this isn’t fucking golf, or some kinda hobby.”

Jonny straightens a little, makes sure Pat is really looking at him. “I know,” Jonny says seriously. “I got curious. I wanted to know.” He pauses, looks at Pat intently and slides his hand around Pat’s wrist in a loose hold. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he says again, gives a little tug, and the look and his grasp make Pat feel like he hasn’t just been thinking about it, but maybe like he’s been thinking about _Patrick_. And that’s it, that’s enough for him, so he yanks Jonny back against him and tilts his head back, thinks he’ll let Jonny figure out how he feels about kissing another man for as long as he fucking wants.

Jonny’s a good kisser. Pat’s not sure why he’s surprised; Jonny is fucking good at everything he applies himself to, and he is definitely applying himself here. Jonny’s kissing him deep and slow, like he has all the time in the world, and Pat’s just sunk back against the wall, taking whatever Jonny feels like giving him. Jonny’s hands are under his shirt, on his stomach, his chest, and he’s rucking Pat’s shirt up until he just slides it over Pat’s head. 

“Smooth,” Pat says. He means to be chirping Jonny, his easy confidence here, taking his time, like he’s got all his moves laid out. 

Instead, Jonny just grins at him, a little bit the way he looks on game days against rival teams, amped up, heading out of the dressing room and ready to prove something.

“I wanted to see you,” Jonny says, and then he drags his teeth over Pat’s collarbone, right where the scar is from his surgery, and that’s fucking dirty pool, the scrape of it and Jonny’s warm breath, his tongue sliding out afterwards like he’s soothing it. Pat’s caught on the way Jonny just said that so simply, like of course he wants to see as much of Pat as he can.

“Fuck, okay,” Pat says, and pushes Jonny back enough that Pat can straighten against the wall. “You just thinking about making out in my hallway, or did you think about anything else?”

“Yeah, Pat,” Jonny breathes out, and Pat feels a little less shaky, a little more like he’s got an ounce of control here, so he walks down the hall to his room, undoing his pants at the same time, stepping out of them once he gets to his room so he’s completely naked, stretching back on the bed, watching Jonny watch him. 

Jonny’s dressed the same way he was at the bar – a plain t-shirt, jeans that are just a bit tighter than he usually wears them having bulked up over the summer, and one of his Blackhawks hats, an old one, backwards on his head. Pat hates that he’s been looking at dudes who look like this and dress like this his whole fucking life and this still completely undoes him, Jonny looking back at him like he’s cataloguing every detail.

Jonny moves to the bed and kneels next to Pat, puts his hands everywhere, scraping against the hairs on Pat’s thighs, over the cuts on his hips like he’s giving a massage, digging his thumbs in and watching Pat squirm, up to his shoulders, over his nipples, and then back down again. Pat just lets him do it, feels overheated and urgent with it now, the way Jonny keeps moving over him, past his dick every time, straining up and leaking against Pat’s belly. 

“Jonny, come on,” he says, and Jonny grabs his hips, hard, and rolls him over. Pat goes with it, lets Jonny press down against him and mouth against the skin right under his ear, and Pat groans and spreads his stance without thinking about it, helpless. 

Pat’d be lying if he said he never noticed their size difference, never thought about it, especially since Brian. But he never thought he’d know it like he does right now, Jonny’s arms straining as he holds himself up over Pat, the bulk of his thighs in his jeans pressed against Pat as he grinds his dick against Pat’s ass. Pat groans and presses back against him, turns his head to sink his teeth into Jonny’s arm, tasting the sweat off his skin, the way he tastes like he smells, that particular Jonny smell that Pat didn’t realize he knew so well until they stopped rooming together and his hotel rooms seemed so foreign.

Jonny grinds against him and sucks a hickey into his neck for long enough that Pat’s panting. He almost wishes Jonny would just reach down and jerk him off, but then Jonny’s pulling back, all that warm weight gone. 

It’s quiet for a couple seconds, and Pat just waits, restless, shifting, not being able to see Jonny. The fact that he’s completely naked and Jonny is back there fully clothed, probably still with his damn hat on, makes him feel hot and shivery. He knows that Jonny is looking at him and feels slutty on his hands and knees. He can feel Jonny settling on the bed behind him but when he goes to turn his head Jonny just presses a firm hand between his shoulder blades, and Pat lets out a breath as he leans down on his elbows, drops his head down and closes his eyes. 

Jonny leaves his hand there, and it feels huge against Pat’s skin, fingers spread wide. It feels possessive and commanding, and Pat’s pretty sure Jonny could tell him to do pretty much anything right now and he’d do it. Jonny presses his thumb just behind Pat’s balls, making his dick leak a little, and then slides his hand up to the head of Pat’s dick to catch the pre-come, spreading it down over him in a few quick strokes. 

This doesn’t feel tentative or unsure at all; Jonny seems confident, like he fucks dudes every other weekend, like he had a plan for Pat. The thought makes him groan and press his hips back, but Jonny pulls his hand away from Pat’s dick and presses his thumb right against Pat’s hole, dipping in just a little, dry and warm, and then he spreads Pat’s cheek away, leans down and spits, and it’s the idea of it as much of the feeling of it that gets Pat. It’s fucking filthy, and Pat groans again, chokes out, “Oh fuck,” as Jonny does it again, one more time, and then slides his thumb back to press in again, warm and wet this time, and dirty in a way Pat hadn’t expected.

“Kaner,” Jonny says, soft, and then presses his whole thumb into Pat, slow. 

It messes with him that Jonny is using his nickname and holding him open at the same time, this strange juxtaposition of normalcy and intimacy that makes Pat feel shaky. Jonny’s still got him pressed down with his other hand and Pat feels split open. Jonny pulls back and Pat can hear him stripping off his shirt, and Pat can’t not be looking at him anymore. 

He rolls over to watch Jonny get undressed. It feels weird to let himself look like this, finally. Jonny looks flushed the way he does after a hard shift, already, and Pat almost can’t believe that he’s the reason Jonny’s that worked up.

“C’mere,” he says, and Jonny stretches out over him and kisses him, open-mouthed, licking in to Pat’s mouth with none of his earlier slowness. He’s braced above Pat on one arm and has the other tangled in Pat’s hair, but after a few seconds, minutes, years, whatever, Pat is losing track of anything but Jonny’s mouth and his weight on him, Jonny moves down so they’re pressed against each other everywhere, and the pressure against his dick makes him shift his hips, makes him feel like he could probably come just from this, if Jonny just kept holding him in place and kissing him like he’s wanted it for a long time.

Eventually he pulls back and pushes at Pat’s thighs until he’s stretched out, and then he grabs for the lube in Pat’s bedside table and slicks his fingers. He pauses with his fingertips resting against Pat’s skin, licks his lips and meets Pat’s eyes. “Can I?”

“Yeah, yes,” Pat says, shifting down to meet him as Jonny slides two fingers in right away, fast enough that Pat gasps with it, braces his feet on the bed so his knees knock against Jonny, biting down on his lip. 

Jonny seems completely transfixed by his fingers sliding in and out of Patrick’s ass, gaze heavy. His other hand is pressing Pat’s hip into the bed, a firm pressure that Pat’s shifting against anyway as Jonny opens him up so, so slowly. He’s not doing anything else but the steady push-pull of his fingers in and out, and finally Pat can’t help it, manages a “Jonny, please,” and Jonny crooks his fingers up immediately, hitting his prostate and circling his fingers, and Pat forgets to breathe for a second. “Fuck, man,” Pat manages, laughing a little as Jonny eases off, smirking down at him. “How did you…”

“I’m not an idiot, Kaner,” Jonny says, and slides his fingers out just to slide three back in, hitting his prostate again and again as he starts to actually fuck him. He leans down over Patrick, sucks a nipple into his mouth and then licks up to Pat’s jaw and bites down just at his pulse point, a move that makes Pat arch and shove himself back down onto Jonny’s fingers. He bites at Pat’s earlobe. “I did my research.”

Part of Pat wants to laugh at the idea of Jonny doing honest-to-god research, but the other, bigger part of him finds it incredibly, unbelievably hot that Jonny got curious enough to look it up. That he wanted to be good at it like he wants to be good at everything, and that all that focus is on Pat now. Pat braces his feet on the bed and grabs Jonny’s arms and rolls them over – is impressed but not surprised at all that Jonny manages to keep his fingers in him as they move – and then he fucks himself back on Jonny’s fingers with his hands on Jonny’s chest. 

“Of course you did research, you fucking psycho,” he breathes out, and Jonny laughs a little before pulling his fingers out and reaching for the condom on the bed next to them, eyes on Pat the whole time.

“It’s important to be prepared,” Jonny says in his captain voice, and it works for Pat, just like he always suspected it would. 

But Pat is completely unprepared for the way it’s going to feel to have Jonny inside him and Jonny’s eyes on him as he sinks down, and he presses his hands into Jonny’s chest in part for balance but also just to ground himself. When he’s got all of Jonny inside him they both just breathe together for a second, and then Pat scratches along Jonny’s chest and starts to move. Jonny doesn’t do anything but hold onto him at first, lets Pat set the pace, and Pat is overwhelmed at how good this is. He was worried it would be weird, that Jonny would no-homo his way out of it at some point, but now he’s deep inside Pat, and Pat doesn’t think Jonny’s even blinked since that first second his dick slid into Patrick.

“Jesus, Kaner,” Jonny breathes out, and then he gets his feet under him and starts thrusting up to meet Pat, fucking him hard and deep every time. Pat can barely look at him, his dark eyes and the sweat sheen along his skin, knows this is going to fuck him up the next time they’re on the bench and Jonny tries to talk to him, out of breath and red-faced. Jonny keeps one hand on Pat’s hip, the same hip he’s been holding onto all night, and Pat likes knowing that there’s going to be bruises there. 

On the next thrust Jonny pulls Pat down onto his dick and brings his other hand up to twist Pat’s nipple and Pat chokes out a breath, lets himself just sit on Jonny’s dick for a second and rock his hips. He closes his eyes and bites his lip, bracing a hand back on Jonny’s thigh and arching back for a different angle, listening to Jonny’s heavy breaths for a second. 

“Fuck, Jonny, please,” he says, and Jonny twists his nipple again, hard, before dropping his hand to Pat’s dick and fucking up into him. 

Pat has had great sex, a lot of it pretty recently, but he feels completely out of his mind this time. He’s spent the past few months discovering a bunch of shit about himself and what he likes, but it turns out pretty much nothing can compare to the fact that what he likes the most is this dumb asshole, with his open-mouthed stare and these little grunts he lets out every time he fucks up into Pat. They remind Pat of what Jonny sounds like working hard on the ice, and he hates and loves that it works for him, the reminder that lines are getting crossed here.

When Pat comes he can’t help but slide a hand through the mess on Jonny’s stomach, his chest, and Jonny groans, watching Pat’s hand on his skin, and then his hips are snapping a couple more times before he’s coming, too. Pat just sits there for a second and looks at Jonny, watches Jonny look back at him, and it feels heavy suddenly, too much, so he rolls off and lets Jonny deal with the condom. Pat lies there for a few minutes, breathing heavily and staring up at the ceiling.

That had probably been a dumb idea. That had definitely been a dumb idea. 

He glances over at Jonny, sprawled out next to him. Jonny has this particular way of taking up space, everywhere he goes, all loose and relaxed, sprawling, and it’s sometimes infuriatingly pushy and smugly confident, but right now Pat is really appreciating the look of Jonny sprawled out in Pat’s bed like he belongs there. He has one leg stretched out to the end of the bed, the other tucked up a little and tangled in the sheets, and one arm thrown over his eyes. His cheeks, his chest, his lips are all red and flushed, still, and Pat badly wants to press his lips to Jonny’s skin, finds that the burning want that started up back at the bar – or back however many years ago, whatever – hasn’t really gone away. Turns out you can’t magically fuck someone out of your system, especially not if you’ve been gone on them for years.

“Hey, Tazer,” he says, and reaches out to just brush his fingers over Jonny’s wrist, turned up on the bed between them. Jonny shivers a little, like he can’t help it, but doesn’t move his other arm from over his eyes. “Jonny, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, and then moves his arm. “You?”

Pat laughs a little. “Yeah, dude. But I knew I’d be into that.”

Jonny finally moves his arm from over his eyes and looks at Pat dead on. “I was into it,” he says, firmly, in that same tone he used when he told Pat he’d done research, the same tone he uses about plays on the ice, and fuck but it hits Pat right where he lives, that part of him that sits up when Jonny talks. Somehow this is the moment it feels real to him, where he knows that Jonny meant it, that Jonny looked at him and wanted him. “Thanks for helping me…experiment.”

Pat shrugs a little, grins. “Anytime.”

Jonny snorts. “Ok if I shower?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Pat says, feeling it hit him finally, drifting to sleep already.

“’K,” Jonny says softly, after a pause, and through his sleepiness Pat feels him brush over the hair at Pat’s temple, along his shoulder, before he pads over to the bathroom and the shower starts.

****

“Jesus, I don’t even know where to start,” Sharpy says, watching Pat get changed from across the dressing room. 

Seabs lets out a low whistle, and Saader gives him some serious side-eye from his spot next to him. 

Across the room, Pat can feel Jonny pointedly not looking at him, and he – of course he fucking forgot about this, didn’t take the time this morning to catalogue what his body looked like, rushing out the door after his alarm never went off because he’d been distracted last night. To be honest, he kind of felt like Jonny might stay, like Pat might wake up to Jonny’s dumb alarm that legitimately hasn’t changed since they were twenty years old. 

Now, with everyone’s eyes on him, Pat looks down at his own body and – oh. Fuck, right. That bruise on his hip is practically a fucking handprint, and when he cranes his neck he can feel that spot under his ear twinge a little, knows Jonny worked it over good. His chest is also covered in marks, and no wonder the guys are giving him those looks – it’s like someone   
attacked him. Fucking Jonny, his weird possessive streak apparently extends to the bedroom but not to looking at Patrick right now. 

Pat opens his mouth to say something back, but Sharpy’s talking again before he can come up with anything to say. “A ten overall, for sure.”

“No kidding,” Saader mutters, and Pat tries to ignore him.

Normally Pat would brush this off, say something smug and probably with a little too much detail, but he can’t because all the details are rushing back into Pat’s brain and it’s like he can feel Jonny’s hands on him again, spreading his thighs open, across his chest, tilting his head back for better access, and Jonny won’t look up and isn’t opening his mouth for the assist. 

“It was…a good time,” he finishes, lamely, and pulls his shirt on quick, knowing he’s made it weird in the room but not knowing how to fix it.

“I’m going to say an 8.5,” Seabs says, passing by and ruffling Pat’s hair a little. “No points for creativity. Remember that girl Crow took home one time?”

Crow groaned from the corner and the rookies are laughing and asking Crow about it and Pat has never been so thankful for Seabs in his life. When Pat glances up a couple seconds later Sharpy is still staring at him from across the room, and Pat says, “What?” 

Sharpy just shakes his head and turns around, but Pat’s pretty sure that’s not the end of it.

Jonny spends most of practice as far away from Pat as he can manage while not looking like anything’s off, but Pat knows Sharpy is watching them and isn’t surprised when he corners him after practice. 

“Let’s go for lunch, Peeks,” Sharpy says, using the name just to annoy him.

“I’m not really –”

“Yes, I know you had a very late night, but humour your old friend, okay?”

So Pat meets Sharpy at their usual lunch place, because there’s no point in prolonging the inevitable, really. Except Sharpy proceeds to make idle chit-chat for a solid twenty minutes, about Abby and the girls, about keeping in touch with the boys back in Dallas, about fucking football, of all things, and then the food comes and he shuts up and starts eating. Pat doesn’t even pick up his sandwich. 

“Sharpy,” he says, and Sharpy looks up, “Just say the thing. Say whatever the fuck you wanna say to me, ok?”

“Woah,” Sharpy says, puts his fork down. “Peeks, this isn’t – I just wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Pat,” Sharpy says, soft, and damn, maybe this was a tactical error, joining Sharpy for lunch.

Pat looks down at his food and puts his hands flat on the table. “Ok, which part of this do you want to talk about? The part where Jonny and I fucked last night? The part where who knew Jonny was even a little bit fucking gay? The part where I don’t know if I cheated on my maybe-boyfriend or not because I don’t know if he’s my fucking boyfriend because I’m too chickenshit to have that conversation? The part where it kinda doesn’t matter because I’ve been in love with Jonny for-fucking-ever?” Pat probably says all of that too loudly but it’s almost worth it for seeing Sharpy speechless.

Sharpy puts his fork down, real steady. “Well. That was a lot. Let’s start with the part where you’re into dudes, because I didn’t fucking know that.”

“Only Jonny knows that,” Pat mumbles, and then realizes that’s not true since this past summer. “And Erica, and Brian.”

“Brian,” Sharpy says. “Oh, Brian. Your friend.” Pat nods. “Okay, so. Brian. Your not-boyfriend. And Jonny. Those are the only people who know?” Pat just nods again. “I guess I feel a bit less left out, then.”

“You knew,” Pat says, because Sharpy had, had told him to follow Jonny last night after that weird moment in the bar.

“I had a hunch,” Sharpy shrugs. “And last night was just – something was obviously up. I didn’t realize you were going to fuck him.”

“Well, actually—” Pat starts, and Sharpy holds up a hand.

“Let’s just stick to one thing at a time, ok? You can try to freak me out with all the details later.” He pauses. “You’re in love with him?”

Pat shrugs, bites his lip. “I’m something for him, for sure. It’s been like this for so long it just sort of became…part of how Jonny is, to me. I don’t know how to fucking say it, man.”

“Yeah, you two have always been weird about each other,” Sharpy says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. He tilts his head at Pat. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you guys didn’t talk much last night.”

Pat shakes his head. “And he had left for practice when I woke up.”

“Huh,” Sharpy says. “Well, you gotta talk to him, Peeks.”

“Why doesn’t he have to talk to me?”

Sharpy levels him with a deeply unimpressed look. “Because you and I are the ones having this conversation. And because you may have had sex with one of your best friends and that’s fucking you up, but Jonny had sex with one of his best friends who is a dude, which, to the best of my knowledge, is not a thing he’s done before. You gotta talk it out, Peeks.”

“Don’t call me Peeks when we’re talking about serious shit.”

“I’ll call you what I want while you’re being a dumbass,” Sharpy says, and picks up his fork again. “I’m bringing it back, anyway, Brinksy’s all over it.”

“Didn’t miss you at all.” Pat grabs his sandwich. “I’ll talk to him,” he says, after a minute.

“You’d better,” Sharpy responds, and then launches off onto a Seguin story, because those never get old.

****

Pat doesn’t talk to Jonny.

And for a while, Jonny doesn’t really talk to Pat, either. They speak, sure, but they stop having lunch dates and they’re never plane buddies anymore, and the space in Pat’s life that’s been taken up by Jonny since mid-summer just feels empty now. It’s not awkward in any way except that Pat can’t stop thinking about it all the time, and when Jonny’s messing with him at practice, dicking around and stealing his puck, pressing him up against the boards, Pat’s brain runs away on him and he forgets that they’re not even really friends right now.

Sharpy keeps giving him significant looks, but Pat doesn’t know where to start. He can’t see a way of talking to Jonny about what happened without talking about his feelings for Jonny, and that’s not something he’s prepared to do, especially since Jonny has been acting like they’re bros and nothing else. Pat feels like a dumbass, actually, because Jonny’s obviously just all fucked up from Lindsey and figuring his shit out, whatever. In his most depressed moments Pat wonders if it was actually really bad for Jonny, somehow, but then – Pat was there, and it was definitely not bad sex.

Sometimes he wishes he could talk to Brian about it, but that is a conversation that requires having the relationship-defining conversation he’s already been avoiding for months. Pat wonders, not for the first time, if maybe he should have come out to someone other than his crush and his sister. Eventually he calls Erica.

“That is quite the pickle, Pattycakes,” Erica says, obnoxiously chewing on something as they talk. Pat is in a hotel room, ostensibly having a pre-game nap but mostly failing to do anything close to relaxing. “I’m just gonna tell you to talk to both of them, you know that, right?”

“I know,” Pat says, because he did kind of know that was going to happen. “I just needed to talk about it with someone who isn’t Sharpy.” He pauses for a second. “I’ve never felt this….young before, I don’t think.”

Erica snorts. “You were much younger once, believe me.” He can hear her crinkling something, like she’s cleaning up. “Pat, the only way to figure this shit out is to talk about it. But you do have my sympathy for the bizarre situation you find yourself in.” Her voice softens a little. “And I’m sorry about how things went with Jonny.”

“I mean, I’m not. I’m glad it happened, I guess? It was dumb of me to think it was anything more than what it was.”

“Well, you couldn’t have known, because all men are dumb and can’t talk about their feelings.”

“I’m pretty sure you took that one women’s studies class and we all learned not to make gross generalizations based on identity categories,” Pat says, and Erica laughs.

“Aw, you were listening.”

“I was,” Pat says, “I learned a lot, actually. But yeah, yes, I get it – talk about my shit.”

“Yes, do that,” Erica says. “And please do not tell me any further details about you and anybody. But do be prepared to introduce me to Brian when I come visit in a couple weeks.”

“Shit,” Pat says, because somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that Erica’s visit meant a family member and the dude he’s dating would be in the same place at the same time. 

“Yeah,” Erica agrees. “So sort your shit out, Pat.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

It’s only a little easier to nap after that, but Pat forces himself to settle down.

The game is solid. An OT win, but a win nonetheless, and Jonny gets the go-ahead goal in the third, putting his early season point production up on last year; Pat’s keeping track of the stats, and Jonny must at least feel it. 

He sits next to Pat on the plane back to Chicago, and they barely talk, but it’s nice anyway, Jonny’s steady breathing next to him as he falls asleep.

****

Sometimes Brian calls Pat when he’s on the road, just to talk. 

They don’t talk about anything hugely important. A lot of hockey, honestly, because Pat couldn’t turn it off if he tried, but they also talk about Brian’s day, Pat’s sisters, what the guys are up to in the epic prank war that Sharpy reinstated and Pat is trying to stay out of. It feels nice and domestic, somehow, to be lying back against the headboard alone in whatever new hotel they’re in and talking to Brian across time zones. It’s the kind of easy familiarity that Sharpy has talking to Abby, regularly scheduled phone calls to check in, messages from the girls sometimes. 

It reminds Pat mostly of Jonny, though, of the days they spent in hotel rooms together when they were younger and then, not too long ago, the way Jonny would listen to Pat talk about the league and Pat would let Jonny talk about his struggles with whatever his dietary restrictions were that week. It always felt like catching up even though they spent all their time in each other’s pockets, and Pat always appreciated having Jonny there after the games, good and bad, to talk through things.

Usually they still have connecting rooms but the door stays closed most nights, now. He used to hear Jonny talking to Lindsey through the wall, a quiet murmur of conversation, and he had always wondered if Jonny talking to Lindsey was like Jonny talking to Pat, how different he might be with her. He’d wondered what Jonny told her about the day, about the game, whether Lindsey cared about the weather where they were, what Jonny’s post-game nap had been like, how he was feeling about the game. 

Amanda had always wanted to know about the cities themselves, had patience for Pat talking through the game but not a lot to offer after a point. Amanda had cared about hockey the right amount, to Pat: invested but not fanatic, which left Pat to work through his post-games on his own, or with Jonny. Once Pat fell asleep in Jonny’s room for a pre-game nap because he’d been worrying through the Preds’ defense and Jonny had been carefully listening, and somewhere in there Pat had just drifted off. It scares him now to think about leaving himself that vulnerable in front of Jonny.

They’ve been playing like crap. Their record is the second-worst in the conference, and Pat knows it’s not all about him and Jonny but he can’t help but feel like there’s something off-kilter to the whole dynamic. All Jonny’s quiet confidence in the season from the summer seems to have fizzled completely, and Pat’s cautious optimism is dissipating too. He feels good on the ice, but there’s something that’s definitely not clicking, and he keeps thinking of his conversation with Erica: he needs to get his shit together.

****

They’re in Philadelphia and Jonny sits next to him on the bus back to the hotel, one leg leaning out into the aisle even as guys are still filing on. 

“Lunch?” Jonny says, and he isn’t looking at Pat but down at his phone, trying really hard to play it cool. They haven’t had lunch together in at least a month, Jonny never bringing it up and always begging off when Pat asked. Pat had stopped asking. It had been fine. They still sat near each other out for drinks with the boys, and Jonny still pulled him in close on the ice for a tap as they filed into the dressing room after games.

“Yeah, sure,” Pat says, aiming for some semblance of normal himself, but he’s twitchy the whole way. He showered at the rink and so when they get to the hotel he just heads up to change, puts on jeans and a t-shirt and a cap, pretends his curls aren’t a fucking disaster. He needs a haircut.

He meets Jonny in the lobby and Jonny is wearing basically the exact same outfit, his usual off-ice garb when he can’t get away with wearing next to nothing. He looks good, like he always does this early in the season, and Pat feels the desire to touch him like an itch he can’t scratch, fiddling with his snapback to have something to do with his hands.

“Giroux recommended a place,” Jonny says, smiling slightly in greeting, and Pat just nods, following Jonny out to the cab. 

It feels tense to him, and he feels like he doesn’t know what to do with his body. He’s hyper-aware of where he sits in the cab, the edges of him against where Jonny’s splayed out, knee knocking out into the centre of the backseat, his arm stretched out so he could brush the back of Pat’s neck if he wanted to. 

Pat firmly reminds himself that Jonny doesn’t want to; Jonny always just takes up space like he owns the right to every inch of it, wherever they are. It has always made Pat want to stubbornly press back against it, from when they were rooming together – has made him want to stake a claim to his own space, the boundaries of where they push up against each other. But in the past few years it’s something that’s made him fond, almost, and he’s come to see Jonny taking up space in his life, literally and figuratively, as a sure sign that they’ll never really be rid of each other; Jonny is for keeps.

The restaurant is small and cozy, and Pat is glad for it, especially since fall already feels like it’s swinging into winter. Pat’s wearing a light jacket over his shirt and should have brought a beanie instead of a cap, or at least thought to bring a hoodie. 

“Cold?” Jonny asks, looking legitimately concerned, and Pat shrugs him off and presses in closer to the inside of the booth.

“I’ll live,” he says, and then the conversation just stops. Pat stares at the menu and thinks about how Jonny always runs hot, always wanted the AC high in hotel rooms, or the heat real low; but Pat likes to feel snug and hates any sign of a draft. They used to fight about it, and sometimes they still do, like it’s an argument they’ll never be able to shake.

“How’s things?” Jonny says once they’ve ordered, and Pat gives him a skeptical look.

“Tazer, we eat the same food, we look at the same hotel walls, we travel with the same group of assholes, we’re playing the same games.”

Jonny deflates a little, leans back in his chair and rubs a hand over his face. “I’m trying, Kaner.”

Pat wants to call him on it, the fact that there’s anything to try for, since it’s Jonny’s fault everything got messed up. But he lets it go. He’s afraid of that conversation, of how it could get away from him; even Jonny’s admission gives him that nervous feeling that they’re on the edge of something and he can’t quite grasp it. “Yeah, ok.” He takes a sip of water and looks around the restaurant. “Feel good about the lineup?”

Q’s decided to put him, Jonny, and Sharpy back together, and Pat doesn’t feel great about it. He knows they’re a good line, but it doesn’t feel right, feels like grasping at straws. 

Jonny shrugs. “Worth trying, I guess.” He doesn’t seem particularly thrilled about it, either, and so much for trying, then.

There’s a long pause and Pat tries to come up with something to say, anything, that’s safe ground: how Brinksy’s doing, what Jonny’s family is up to, Erica’s upcoming visit, but instead what comes out is, “Sharpy’s a pain in my ass, since I told him.”

Jonny straightens in his chair a little. For a split second Pat thinks Jonny’s going to ask if Pat told Sharpy about them, but he just says, “Has he been trying to set you up with every gay man he’s ever met?” Jonny’s talking low, because they are in Montreal, but he’s smirking a little, too.

Pat snorts. “I would never,” he says. “No, he knows about Brian.”

“Huh.” Jonny fiddles with his cutlery for a second, smoothes the paper napkin out. “So are you two still…?”

“Don’t say beaus,” Pat cuts in, and Jonny smirks at him.

“I was gonna say, are you still fucking around.”

Pat rolls his eyes. “No, you weren’t.”

Jonny grins for real. “No, I wasn’t.” He leans back, looking serious. “But you talked to him?”

Pat hates that it feels like they’re skirting around something, here, but appreciates that Jonny is trying. If he wants to pretend like they never slept together, then Pat will just have to figure out how to do it, too, and take Jonny’s friendship at face value, like before. “I haven’t, not really. I know I need to. It’s been months and I like him, but…”

“But it’s a big deal,” Jonny finishes, and Pat nods. “Would you…would you come out?”

The _for him_ is unspoken, but it weighs on Pat right away, the question he hasn’t really been asking himself. It’s seemed more and more like a possibility to him, the way that he and Brian fit together, the way that maybe it could be a life. “I don’t know,” he says, honestly, and Jonny nods.

“You should talk to him,” he says seriously, and then rolls his eyes. “You should have already, Kaner, jesus.”

“Fuck you,” Pat says, automatic, but then he grins. “I’ve been kinda busy with this shitshow of a a season we’re having.”

Jonny smiles. “No shit,” he agrees. “Power play is looking better.”

“It’s all that anniversary magic,” Pat says, and then feels like he’s maybe crossed a line, too close to the truth of how he feels, how Jonny must know he feels.

But Jonny just laughs, and agrees, and they spend the rest of lunch talking about hockey, and the team, and a little bit about their friends in the league. It feels easy, and normal, and Pat lets himself feel a little settled.

***

The next time Brian’s over, Pat puts the game they’re watching on mute and turns to Brian on the couch. Brian raises an eyebrow at him and sets his beer down. “This feels important,” he says, turning to Pat. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Pat says. “I just, uh. I wanted to talk about what it is we’re doing here.” He winces a little at how it comes out, stumbling and uncertain, but Brian nods.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” he says, immediately making Pat feel better about making this into a thing at all. He takes a deep breath, and Pat matches him, trying to calm his own nerves. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it.” He pauses again. “I don’t know if I can actually date a celebrity,” Brian says finally, settling back against the armrest to fully face Pat.

“Okay, wow,” Pat says, because somehow he hadn’t exactly considered that as a possibility. He’d figured maybe Brian just straight-up wouldn’t want to date him, but hadn’t really considered how Brian felt about Pat being closeted.

“What, did you figure you’d be letting me down easy at some point?” Brian says, but he’s smiling a little.

“No, man.” Pat takes a second, feels suddenly choked up and annoyed about it. “I really like you. I wasn’t sure if it was just buddies, or whatever, but I didn’t…I wasn’t imagining having to let you down easy, that’s for sure.”

“It’s not just buddies,” Brian says, and then he moves closer to Pat on the couch, which is great for the weirdness Pat’s feeling but not so great for dealing with the tears that are threatening to show up any second.

“Sorry, I just – I guess I didn’t realize how in this I really was until just now.”

“Ah, Pat,” Brian says, soft, and he curls an arm over Pat’s shoulders and tugs him in against his chest. “You can cry, you know, I’ve seen it already on TV,” he says into Pat’s ear, and Pat laughs and does actually start to cry a little.

“Fuck you,” he says, but it’s weak.

“I like you a lot, man, like hanging out, love your hockey, love the sex. But you never really think about what dating a celebrity will be like.” Pat thinks about how careful they’ve both been any time they’re in public together, how anxious and regretful he’s been simultaneously.

“I get it,” Pat says, pulling back a little and wiping his eyes. “You wanna be one of the WAGs for real, and you can’t be. It’s tough.”

Brian snorts. “Yeah, basically that.” He curls his fingers in Pat’s hair and tugs a little, makes Pat look up at him. “Basically that, though,” he repeats seriously. “I wish I could actually be involved in that way. Not for the spotlight, because that seems shit. But that it wouldn’t be such a big thing.”

“Yeah,” Pat says, and thinks about it, again, what it would be like to exist like that. “Fuck, this sucks.”

“Yeah,” Brian says, and then leans back, arm still around Pat’s shoulders. “Maybe in ten, fifteen years when you retire, and Jonny’s still straight, look me up.”

Pat’s stunned for a second, and then manages, “What – Jonny?”

Brian looks at him sideways, grins one of those wide, slow grins that Pat really loves, didn’t realize how much he loved until right now. “Oh yeah. You think that crush isn’t one that can be seen from space?”

“Shit,” Pat says, chokes out a laugh. “That obvious, huh?”

Brian shrugs. “To me, at least. We all have the one straight dude crush, it’s a rite of passage.”

“Sharpy also figured it out,” Pat says. “Well, sorta.” He pauses, and tries to decide if he’s going to tell Brian, and then says, all in a rush, “Me and Jonny kinda slept together.”

“Woah,” Brian says, and then slides his arm away from Pat, and for a second Pat is worried that he’s pissed. But no, just considering, turning to look directly at Pat now. “You kinda slept together?”

“Okay, we definitely slept together,” Pat amends.

“And?” Brian asks, and Pat laughs, a little disbelieving. Brian continues, “What, you want me to pretend I haven’t thought about it?”

“Just Jonny, or me and Jonny?”

“Both,” Brian says, immediately, and then laughs at the look of shock that must be on Pat’s face. “You are two attractive dudes who spend a lot of time together. Some of it naked.” He pauses, and then says, “Apparently more than I thought.”

Pat looks down. “It was just once.”

There must be something in his tone, because Brian’s teasing stops. “And then?”

“And then….nothing. Bros.”

“Did you talk to him?”

Pat rolls his eyes. “What is with everybody and talking?”

Brian laughs. “Sharpy told you the same thing, huh? That guy is smart.”

“Don’t let him hear you say it,” Pat says, automatic, and then slumps back a bit, closes his eyes. “And my sister. I know I need to talk to him.”

“Okay, well then man up and do it.” He grabs Pat’s wrist, firm, and squeezes. “You talked to me. He’s just Jonny, he’s not going anywhere. That’s kinda what I meant, about post-retirement. Feels like it’s always going to be the two of you, one way or another.”

“That is some cheesy bullshit, man,” Pat says, but he slides his hand down so they’re actually linked and squeezes back.

“Yeah, but you’re totally into it,” Brian says, and smirks when Pat groans, like he knows he’s totally got his number. “So – pizza, beer, hockey?” He stands up and walks into the kitchen.

Pat nods, following him. “This is easily the weirdest breakup I’ve ever had.”

“Me too,” he says, handing a beer to Pat and shrugging. “But I like it.”

Suddenly Pat feels choked up again, thankful that the person he decided to have a random one night stand with turned out to be not just a one night stand. “Hey, Brian,” he says, and then stops, not sure how to say all of that. “Thanks, man,” he says, finally, and Brian just smiles at him and reels him in for another hug.

“No problem, Pat,” Brian says. “But obviously I expect box seats for life.”

***

Pat tells Sharpy that he broke up with Brian and doesn’t tell Jonny. 

Jonny finds out anyway, somehow. When Pat tries to glare at Sharpy, he just looks completely unrepentant, shaking his head at Pat from across the dressing room. Jonny is standing next to Pat’s stall, closer than he’s been in a while, and he taps Pat’s shin pads to get his attention. It’s such a familiar Jonny gesture that it makes his breath catch for a second, the routine of it from years and years of checking in with each other before and after games.

When he looks up Jonny’s just looking at him, and Pat sighs. “I’m good, I promise.”

“Okay,” he says, and then, like always, “Hustle up,” as though Pat isn’t fastidious about his pre-game routine. He leaves and Pat glares at Sharpy again, but Sharpy isn’t paying attention and Pat is left to stew in his own emotions for longer than he’s comfortable with.

Erica arrives that week, right at the beginning of a three-game homestand. For the first day she doesn’t ask Pat a single question about his love life, which Pat considers a minor miracle, but he also knows it’s only a matter of time. They have lunch together on a game day and then Pat considers a nap. He doesn’t always have one, pre-game, depends more on their schedule and his body than any specific routine, and today he decides he’d rather talk to Erica. It’s a crisp day, a little chilly, but they go for a walk anyway. 

“You wanna ask,” he says, after the small talk is too much. He can feel the tension in his chest, completely at odds with the slow walk they’re taking through the park. 

“You want to talk about it?” Erica asks, and Pat shrugs, hands still in his jacket pockets. “Pat, what’s up?”

“Brian and I...broke up. Or we’re — we’re not together? We weren’t ever? Shit, I don’t know.” 

Erica bumps her shoulder against his, but keeps walking at her steady pace. “That’s too bad. Was it because of Jonny?”

Pat laughs a little. “No, weirdly. The celebrity thing. The hiding thing.”

“Ah,” Erica says, and then there’s a long silence. “Would you come out, ever, do you think?”

Pat lets out a long breath. “I’ve thought about it. It’d just be a lot. A lot of pressure, a lot of attention.” Pat has a reputation for being a showoff, the earlier drunken shithead behaviour that makes him seem like he likes to make a scene, but really he’s always been more private than that persona, even before he realized just how gay he might be. 

“It would be. I think if you found the right person, it might be okay,” Erica says. “It’s okay that Brian wasn’t that person, you know.”

“I really like him,” Pat says, feeling raw. He thinks back to that conversation with Brian, the way Brian’s been in his life since, a steady, casual comfort that feels weird to Pat for how not-weird it is. Amanda was his partner for years, and now they barely talk. If she needed something, he’d be there for her, but the distance hasn’t felt like any great issue in his life. “But I’m definitely not ready to come out right now.”

“That’s ok, you don’t owe it to anyone, you know that.” 

“Yeah,” Pat says. “I just feel like. I don’t know, whether it’s worth it, I guess, to keep hiding.” 

Erica stops, and pulls him into a hug. “Pat, it’s never going to be obvious,” she says against his neck, holding him tight. “Someday it’s just going to shift a little, and you’ll feel a little more certain about it being worth it to come out.” 

Pat huffs out a breath. “That sucks,” he says, and Erica laughs.

“No kidding,” Erica says. “I know how impatient you get.”

“Hey,” Pat says mildly, and Erica shakes her head and keeps walking. 

“So, I still get to meet Brian?” 

“Yeah, you have seats together at the game tonight, as per your request,” Pat says. “Try not to make him feel too awkward.” Brian is a pretty unflappable guy, but Pat’s sisters are notoriously persistent. “No asking about our sex life.”

“Ew, Patty, as if I care.”

“I think you care about embarrassing me,” Pat shoots back, and Erica grins.

“Too true.” They walk in comfortable silence for a few minutes, and Pat starts to relax a little. He had been wondering whether he made the wrong call with Brian, like maybe he should have considered coming out, but Erica’s support is reassuring. He’s just been lulled into a false sense of security, though, because Erica says, out of the blue, “So, wait, does Brian know about Jonny?”

Pat groans. “Please do not talk to Brian about Jonny.”

“Well, that’s a yes if I ever heard one,” Erica says, and she pokes at Pat’s side. “Tonight is going to be a lot of fun.”

***

Pat obviously didn’t have to worry about Brian and Erica getting along. He probably should have worried more about them getting along too well. After warmups he checks his phone and he has a message from each of them. 

From Brian: _your sister and i both think you should go for it with jonny. also that your crush is both cute and embarrassing._

And from Erica: _does Brian swing both ways?? or have a brother? important info need ASAP._

Pat is rolling his eyes at his phone when Sharpy sits down next to him. “What’s up, Peeks?”

“Stop calling me that,” Pat says, automatically, and forgets to shield his phone from Sharpy.

“Brian, huh?” 

“Him and Erica are bonding, it was probably a mistake,” Pat says, and Sharpy grins.

“Brian’s here?” Jonny asks, and it startles Pat. He hadn’t realized Jonny was listening. 

“Yeah, he’s keeping Erica company.”

“Huh,” Jonny says, like that’s any kind of answer, and then drifts off to talk to one of the equipment guys. 

Pat looks over at Sharpy, perplexed, but Sharpy just shrugs. “I don’t know, Kaner, he’s your weird husband, not mine.”

“Fuck off,” Pat says, but he can feel himself blushing, the same way he does every time someone makes a comment about them being an old married couple. It happens so often he wishes he could train himself out of it, but so far it hasn’t really worked. It’s too close to what he wants - not necessarily to marry Jonny, but to be seen as a unit like that, to have their closeness recognized.

The game that night is good, a solid effort and pretty evenly-matched. But the first power play unit is a mess; even though they come away with a win, they don’t capitalize on a single one of their six power plays. 

In a commercial break in the second period, the Kiss Cam zooms in on Brian and Erica. Because Pat’s life is hilariously awkward sometimes, he gets to watch Erica give Brian an incredibly brief kiss on the cheek while the crowd yells for a real kiss. He’s charmed that Brian is still wearing his #88 jersey. 

Brian, Erica, Pat, and a couple of the guys go out after for a drink, but Jonny’s out of the dressing room fast. Pat texts him with the invite but doesn’t get a response until the next day, something vague and irrelevant. Pat tries not to let it get to him. 

But Jonny just keeps being weird around him, like they’re right back where they were right after they slept together. Pat can’t figure out what might have changed, except that maybe Jonny realized how Pat feels about him. At practice, Jonny keeps his distance, only interacts with Pat when the drills force them together. 

Jonny doesn’t even make time to see Erica like he usually would. It’s only his absence from hanging out with Erica that makes Pat realize how consistently Jonny has been a part of family life. He’s usually there for at least a dinner or two when Pat’s family members visit, almost as close with them as Amanda had been. He knows Erica isn’t taking it personally, but it just drives it home for Pat, what he’ll be missing from his life if Jonny takes a permanent step back. 

On their flights, Jonny sits three rows back from Pat, and it clearly confuses everyone. By the second time Sharpy just shrugs and drops into the space next to Pat. For once he doesn’t say anything about it. 

The road trip is a mess, eking out one win, dropping another in OT, and a third that it’s better to just not talk about. Pat has high hopes for their first game back at the UC, but if their season opener was the perfect dream, this is Pat’s worst nightmare: nothing’s connecting, for anybody, and he feels like he’s forgotten how to skate. All of his equipment feels off, like he doesn’t know how to tie his own skates properly, or like he put his gear on in the wrong order. 

(Officially Pat doesn’t believe in superstitions; unofficially he’s a little intense about certain things, like any guy, like Jonny. Jonny won’t admit it, either.) 

Halfway through the second period, down 1-0, they get a powerplay on a sloppy puck flipped over the glass, and Pat hops onto the ice with Jonny, Sharpy, Saader, and Duncs. The set-up takes a while because Bergeron gets kicked out, and then Marchand’s in for him instead. And then, all of a sudden, Jonny’s cross-checking Marchand in the chest. Pat doesn’t react at first, in complete shock, but it’s a short scuffle anyways and Saader is there to pull Jonny away. He gets a penalty anyway, and there goes the power play.

Pat spends most of that shift in a daze, completely useless, and still feels stunned sitting on the bench, looking out across the ice at Jonny in the box. Jonny is steadfastly not looking back. It was a dumb penalty to take. He asks Saader about it and Saader just shakes his head, frowning, and then Jonny avoids Pat completely on the bench after they’ve killed the penalty, keeping space between them for the rest of the period.

“Are we gonna talk about it?” Pat says, catching Jonny in the hall outside the locker room in the intermission, and Jonny just shakes his head.

“Nope,” he says, stubborn, and then goes in to listen to Q. He’s scowling the whole time, and the energy’s weird with the whole team going back onto the ice for the third. 

They’re at the face-off circle on a powerplay again halfway through the period, this time on one of those incredibly light slashing penalties the league is into calling this year, and Pat’s paying close attention to Bergeron and Jonny at the dot. They set up once, and then have to set up again, Marchand coming in again for Bergeron, and Marchand’s talking louder than last time, or maybe he means for Pat to hear. 

“Never figured the rumours were true, Tazer. You let that faggot suck you off? Or is it the other way around?”

And this time Pat anticipates Jonny, is across the ice before Jonny drops his gloves, pushing Jonny away. 

“Get your shit together,” he hisses, and refuses to look back at Marchand. Jonny still looks pissed, worrying his mouthguard, but he doesn’t say anything. “Get it the fuck together, Tazer, what the hell.”

Pat pushes Jonny over to his side of the circle and lets Saader come in for him to face-off against Marchand. Saader wins the face-off, but they lose the game; a shitty way to finish, 1-0, a single turnover that cost them early on. They haven’t had such a low-scoring game in probably a month.

The mood in the room after is quiet, and Jonny’s not helping anything, because Jonny’s the real problem. He says barely anything in his speech, just a generic “we’ll get it next time,” and Q clearly has some shit to say but the room’s too tense. 

Pat waits until he and Jonny are both out of their gear, and until Duncs has started up a conversation that’s at least in safe territory, before he drags Jonny out of the room. There’s people hanging around, and Pat’s extremely aware of the loose grasp he has on Jonny’s wrist, what it might look like, but Jonny doesn’t shake him off and Pat doesn’t quite trust him not to bolt. He finds a side hall and rounds on Jonny.

“What the fuck, man,” Pat says, after a minute of trying to find better words and failing.

“I don’t know why you’re so fucking mad,” Jonny huffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You took a dumb penalty in a tight game against a team we could have beaten,” Pat says, because making it about hockey is always the safer option. 

“I know it was dumb, but—” 

Pat doesn’t let him finish. “You almost took the same dumb penalty with under ten left in the third!” 

Jonny opens his mouth and closes it again, clearly struggling to find the words. He looks pissed, almost as pissed as he was on the ice. “I don’t want to have to listen to that shit,” he says finally, pulling his t-shirt up to wipe at his face.

“It’s the same shit they always say, Tazer, what the hell,” Pat snaps, and he knows they shouldn’t be doing this in the hall but he’s so mad he couldn’t have waited til they were back at the hotel.

“That doesn’t mean it’s _okay_ ,” Jonny snaps back.

“I know it’s not okay, asshole.”

Jonny lets out a long breath. They’ve been arguing with each other for so long – like a married couple, says Sharpy’s voice in his head – that Pat knows the beats of it by now. Jonny is trying to get a handle on his own anger, to back down from escalating. Sometimes Pat feels like he went to therapy sessions _with_ Jonny, the way he knows how this goes. 

“Kaner,” Jonny says, “I wasn’t trying to, I don’t know, protect you. Or whatever you thought that was that has you so mad.”

“You don’t get to treat me like I’m fucking fragile. Guys have been saying that shit to me since before I even knew it was about me. You gonna get all riled up every time?”

“Maybe,” Jonny says, crossing his arms, and Pat can’t help but roll his eyes.

“Come on, man, I don’t need you defending my honor, or whatever the hell you think you’re doing. Picking dumb fights is just letting them rile you up. And it makes you look –” Pat cuts himself off.

“Makes me look what?” Jonny pushes off the wall and steps closer to him. “Huh? What, like I give two fucks?”

“It makes you look like you’re taking it personal,” Pat says, and shoves Jonny hard in the chest, just to get a bit of distance.

“Maybe I am taking it personal.”

“Jonny, you’re not gay,” Pat says, exasperated.

“Maybe a little,” Jonny shrugs, leans back against the wall again with forced nonchalance.

“Maybe, maybe,” Pat repeats. “Maybe it’s personal, maybe you’re gonna fight every time someone chirps you, or me, maybe you’ve decided you’re a little gay?”

“Yes.” Suddenly it’s like Pat putting it that way, all those direct questions and not just rhetorical anger, makes it easier for Jonny to respond. He’s giving Pat that look again, all calm confidence, so assured in his answers. “Yes, I’ve decided I’m a little gay, I am gonna take it personal, and we’ll see if I feel like fighting depending on what bullshit people feel like saying, okay?”

“Not okay,” Pat says, but it’s weak. “Fuck, Jonny, a month ago you didn’t give two fucks when people chirped me about my cocksucking lips.”

Jonny’s gaze drops to his mouth and Pat feels caught, suddenly self-conscious. He’s heard that chirp a million times and never thought much of it, but now it feels like a dare. He’s so aware of Jonny’s gaze and he can’t help but lick his lips, quick, and Jonny tracks it.

“I was…figuring shit out.”

“Oh yeah? Because it seemed like you experimented a little and decided it wasn’t for you.” Pat can’t help the sneer that creeps into his voice at that. He’s still mad about it, maybe, even though he thought he was over it.

“That’s not –” Jonny stops, takes another one of his deep, steadying breaths, like he learned from yoga. “I was thinking about it. You kept showing up with bruises, with stories. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” Jonny pauses, rubs his hands over his thighs. “I didn’t realize until after that it was mainly you I was thinking about, caught up on. And that wasn’t…it was just bros, right? And I fucked it up and caught some fucking feelings about it, and you had Brian, so.” He drops his gaze and fiddles with the hem of his shirt, such an un-Jonny thing to do, fiddling. Jonny is almost never nervous like that. 

Patrick breathes out, slow, staring at Jonny and processing everything he just said. “You are a fucking dumbass.”

Jonny looks up, still slumped back against the wall. “What?”

“You ‘caught feelings,’ jesus, what a straight dude thing to say.” 

“Hey,” Jonny says, but he stops fiddling and straightens up a little, like he’s really paying attention to Pat now. 

“Everyone and their mom has noticed that I’m in love with you, asshole,” Pat says, fierce.

“But what about Brian?”

“Brian noticed, too,” Pat says. “And until five fucking minutes ago you were straight and Brian’s a great dude,” Pat says, and he’s moving until he’s right up against Jonny, can feel the heat of his skin. He keeps the bare minimum of distance between them, just in case. 

“Oh,” Jonny says, dumbly, and then he’s leaning down to kiss Pat, open-mouthed, his hands possessive against Pat’s neck, his back.

“We’re not done talking about this, Tazer,” Pat says, pulling away, because they really are not done talking about the dumb penalties. But Jonny drags Pat close against his body and slides a hand under his shirt, to the sweaty skin at the small of his back, and Pat lets himself press back. 

Jonny leans in close and kisses Pat’s jaw, wet and messy, and then says, “I’ve been thinking about you fucking me,” real close to Pat’s skin, so there’s no way he can miss the way Pat’s breath hitches. “I wanna be on my knees for you, Kaner, I want to know what you taste like.”

“What the fuck, Jonny,” Pat breathes out, and pulls away from Jonny before his hardening dick can get anymore out of hand. “Jesus,” he says, looking at Jonny pressed back against the wall, hot and red and sweaty and worked up, from the game and from this, and Pat wants him in his bed right now. He runs a hand over his face and when he opens his eyes again Jonny is just staring at him.

“We doing this?” he says, steady, and straightens up against the wall, leaving distance between them.

“Yeah, Tazer,” Pat says, and then, because he can’t help himself, “Please.”

***

Last time, it had felt so heavy they’d barely spoken, and Pat had been so wrapped up in the feeling of it. But now Jonny won’t shut the fuck up, like since he finally figured out how to talk about one thing that’s been on his mind, now he can talk about everything. 

He keeps saying shit on the ride over like, “I fingered myself and it felt good, but I know it’ll be better when it’s you,” like that’s not distracting Pat, completely fucking him up. He’s overcome by the images, Jonny stretched out and touching himself, thinking of Pat, and then, more immediate, the idea of Jonny under him, Pat’s fingers opening him up. Pat’s amazed he manages to drive them back to his condo without getting into an accident.

They barely make it inside the door before Pat has Jonny pressed up against the wall. He wants to touch all of Jonny, but settles for framing his face with his hands and kissing him hard instead, gratified by the way Jonny slouches down to let Pat have access. Jonny’s quiet and pliant against him, but he keeps making these little moaning noises and so Pat keeps kissing him just to hear them. 

He feels like he could spent hours just kissing Jonny in the hallway, stuck on the idea that Jonny wants him back, just him, not just an experiment, but eventually Jonny pulls away from him and leans his head back against the wall. Pat immediately kisses his neck, tastes the arena soap and Jonny’s sweat strong against his tongue. 

“Pat, please,” Jonny says, and then stops to just breathe as Pat licks up his neck.

“Please what, Jonny,” he says, and Jonny grabs his hips and pushes Pat back a little.

“You should fuck me,” he says, and then grins, straightening up. “Please.” His hands are still on Pat’s hips but now he’s looking down at him and Pat drags him back down into another kiss with one hand on the back of Jonny’s head.

“Okay, yeah,” he says, trying for the same conversational tone Jonny is somehow managing, “Let’s do that.” He doesn’t think he’s especially convincing, though, as Jonny smirks at him when Pat tugs him down the hallway, clumsy and over-eager.

It’s been a long time since Pat fucked somebody, since long before Brian. He likes letting someone else have that control, giving it up for a while, but he forgot how good it feels to be the one in control, too. Sitting up over Jonny, with Jonny stretched out in front of him, Pat’s overwhelmed with the things he wants to do, where to start. He wants to make Jonny fall apart. The fact that Jonny’s so calm and confident about what he wants is hot, and Pat can imagine him thinking it out, watching porn, jerking off and thinking about Pat. Pat wants Jonny to know exactly how good it feels to be taken apart by someone else, someone who just gets you.

“Remember what you said, at the convention?” Pat says, pressing his thumbs into the crease of Jonny’s thighs, watching him stretch into the pressure. Jonny’s eyes are lidded, like he’s already out of it, but he makes a sound of assent.

“About sex,” he says, and Pat laughs a little.

“Yeah, to be good the first time, to know all of someone’s buttons,” Pat says, and Jonny nods. Pat slides his hands up Jonny’s sides, trying to cover as much skin as he can with his hands, and bites down on Jonny’s shoulder, right near his neck, the part of him that’s always displayed in those loose t-shirts he favours. Pat licks up to the pulse point below Jonny’s ear and just breathes for a second, feels Jonny’s heart speed up, and then presses a wet, open-mouthed kiss against his skin, tasting him again. 

“I don’t want to know all the things right away,” he says, letting his tongue touch Jonny’s earlobe, biting down on it gently for a second, just to see what happens. Jonny’s breath hitches and he spreads his legs a little, so Pat bites down harder and shifts his hips to press more firmly against Jonny, their dicks sliding against each other through the fabric of Pat’s briefs. “I want to take my time figuring out every single thing that gets you hot,” Pat says, and Jonny actually groans, tangles his hands in Pat’s hair.

“I like hearing you talk,” Jonny says finally, pulling away and sliding his hands down Pat’s back to play with the waistband of his briefs.

“Good,” Pat says, and pulls back, dislodging Jonny’s hands. “I’m going to talk you through it while I work you open, until you’re loose enough for my dick.”

“Fuck, Kaner,” Jonny says, and moves his hand down to jerk himself a few times, throwing his head back. Pat wants to suck bruises into the long line of Jonny’s neck. Instead he just lowers his body until he can suck the head of Jonny’s dick into his mouth, and Jonny gasps and stills his hand at the base. When Pat looks up Jonny’s looking down at him, not moving, and Pat lets Jonny’s dick rest on his lip for a second before tonguing against the head, wet and messy. Jonny lets out a shuddering breath and moves his hand away completely, fisting both hands in the sheets. “Pat, come on.”

“Come on, what?” Pat says, and Jonny doesn’t answer, so he slowly sinks down further, swallows when it hits the back of his throat and is fascinated by Jonny’s full-body shudder.

Jonny tugs at his hair. “Come on, you said you were gonna open me up,” he says, and Pat slides the heel of his hand against his dick, straining against his briefs. Jonny is pink everywhere, dick flushed against his stomach, and Pat licks his lips just looking at it, chasing the taste of Jonny off his own skin. “I love your hands, Kaner, wanna know what your fingers feel like inside me.”

“Yeah,” Pat says, palms himself through the fabric even though it’s a little rough. “I just want to look at you for a minute.” Jonny closes his eyes for a second and clenches his hands on his thighs, just quick, before relaxing again. Pat smirks. “Yeah, you like it when I look at you? That’s why you’re always wandering half-naked, Tazer, you get off on being looked at?”

Jonny opens his eyes, looks at Pat. “Last week I jerked off thinking about you watching me, before. In the dressing room, at hotels. I thought about you watching me and getting hot, jerking off in the shower thinking about what you wanted to do to me.”

Jesus, fuck. Pat wants to be more in control here but thinking about their shared history like that, like Jonny walking around displaying himself for Pat, Pat getting off on it later, it makes Pat bite his lip, take a second. 

Eventually he stands up and pulls his underwear off, grabs the lube and a condom from the bedside table and kneels back on the bed. Jonny’s jacking his dick again, slowly, watching Pat’s every move like he could wait all night.

“You don’t need to use a condom,” he says. “I haven’t been with anyone but you since Lindsey.” Pat just stares at him for a second, processing the timeline of that, the implications.

Pat has to kiss him, messy and slick, pressing his whole body against Jonny’s. The feeling of skin on skin makes Pat just want to slide against Jonny until they both come, but it feels like Jonny’s issued a challenge. Jonny might be more competitive than Pat, but Pat’s always had a thing about proving himself. “I don’t know about Brian, for sure,” he says, still pressed against Jonny everywhere. “It’s probably not a thing, but we probably shouldn’t.” He sinks his teeth into Jonny’s shoulder because he is learning that Jonny likes that extra edge of pain, and Jonny thrusts his hips against him and groans.

“Fine,” he says. “But we’re getting checks done ASAP and then you’re gonna fuck me bare.”

“Goddamnit, Jonny.” Pat rests his head on Jonny’s shoulder for a second, licks at his collarbone just for something to do. “You don’t even know if you’re gonna like it yet.”

Jonny tips his head up. “Peeks,” he says, smirking, “I thought you were gonna make me like it.”

Pat had wanted to take his time with Jonny. For a long time, when he let himself think about it, it wasn’t all candlelight and rose petals, but it was definitely slow and there was definitely less chirping than there is now. But Pat appreciates it. He didn’t realize that Jonny would have such a filthy mouth, anyway, and it feels like a challenge Pat needs to keep up with and a mind-bogglingly hot bonus all at once. Now he feels hurried, and it’s not that he can’t wait to come, it’s that he can’t wait to make Jonny come. 

“You’ve done this to yourself?” Pat asks, reminding himself and checking in at the same time. He’s kneeling between Jonny’s legs and popping open the lube, getting his fingers wet and sliding the lube around a little, just watching Jonny, letting it warm up.

“Only a couple times,” Jonny says. His eyes are caught on Pat’s fingers. Pat grins and presses his fingers lower, just along the cleft of Jonny’s ass, sliding over his hole slowly.

“One of these days I want to eat you out,” Pat says, still just running his fingers over Jonny’s skin with no real intent. Jonny’s breathing heavier now, head back but looking at Pat, running his tongue along his bottom lip like he can’t help it. “I’m going to take my time,” he says, circling over Jonny’s hole with his index finger, slow, tight circles, listening to Jonny’s breathing speed up, “And make you lie on your stomach and hold yourself open for me, so I can see your hole better, and then I’m going to spend as long as I want licking you open until you’re begging me to fuck you.”

“Pat,” Jonny groans, and he shifts his hips down so the tip of Pat’s finger just slips inside him, and they both still for a second.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, come on,” Jonny says, and reaches down to grab at Pat’s forearm, squeezing for a second until Pat starts to push into him more. He goes slow until his whole finger’s inside Jonny, slick and hot, and then starts tight circles and presses his thumb against Jonny’s perineum. Pat gets lost watching Jonny for a couple minutes, nothing but the steady pattern of his finger and Jonny’s breathing, his little hitching breaths, and then Jonny opens his eyes and Pat decides it’s time for a second finger.

“Jonny,” Pat starts, sliding two fingers in and crooking them up, making Jonny huff out a breath and shift on the bed, pressing back against Pat’s hand. “Jonny,” he says again, matching Jonny’s pace, fucking his fingers into him as Jonny shifts down. “It’s good?” He knows it’s dumb, wishes he didn’t feel so vulnerable all of a sudden, watching Jonny and wanting to make it good for him.

“Kaner, hurry the fuck up,” Jonny says, and Pat reaches for the lube just to be safe and adds a third finger, fucks up into Jonny hard and watches Jonny leak against his stomach, the low groan Jonny gives out making his own dick twitch. He honestly feels like he could just watch Jonny fall apart on his fingers for hours, without even really worrying about himself, but soon Jonny is blindly reaching for the condom and flicking it at Pat. “Seriously, Pat, fuck me. I’ve been waiting months.”

Pat pulls his fingers out and fumbles with the packet. “Months, asshole. I’ve been waiting…” He’s breathless and feels caught out in that moment, about to say years but not wanting to be too much. “A long time,” he finishes, looking down to roll the condom over his dick like that’ll save the moment.

“Pat,” Jonny says, soft, and he brings his legs up to link against his back and pull Pat down against him, rough and clumsy. “I’m all yours.”

And Pat hasn’t really imagined Jonny saying anything like that before, because it seemed too far outside the realm of possibility. But now it suddenly seems like exactly what all of his dumb fantasies have been about, and he can’t help but lean down and kiss him. “Fuck, Jonny. Are you sure?”

“Pat, I swear to god if you don’t get in me—”

“Here, wait,” Pat says, and reaches over to grab one of the extra pillows, tapping Jonny’s hip so he lifts up and Pat can slide it under him. Jonny blinks at him, slow, limbs splayed out, and Pat can’t believe how out of it Jonny is, just lost in it, letting Pat tell him what to do. “Good?” he says, finally, after they’ve held eye contact for a long second.

“Yeah, Pat,” Jonny says, with a slow nod. He shifts lower, bumping his thighs against Pat’s waist. “Come on, get in me.”

“That’s not hot, the bossiness,” Pat says, and Jonny winks at him. Pat’s gripping the base of his dick and he’s not fooling anybody.

Pat braces himself against Jonny and pushes his dick inside, groans at how hot and tight Jonny is, how long it’s been since he did this. He puts his weight on his knees so he can look at Jonny, all loose-limbed like always and stretched out in Pat’s bed. “God, you look good taking my dick.”

Jonny’s looking back at him, wide-eyed, and Pat sinks in a little further, watches Jonny’s slow blink and heavy breath as he adjusts and lets Pat in. 

“Feels good, Kaner,” Jonny says, sounding dazed as Pat settles into a steady rhythm, knees tucked under Jonny’s thighs and arms braced at his shoulders. He drops down onto his elbows so he can bite at Jonny’s shoulder, his neck, and on a particularly deep thrust Jonny actually gasps. He runs a hand through the curls at the back of Pat’s neck and tugs a little until Pat’s kissing him, sloppy with it. 

 

Pat can feel Jonny’s dick along his abs and he bears down more, so his body is covering Jonny’s as much as possible. He can’t get as deep this way but it gives Jonny something to press up against and lets Pat leave marks along his skin. He catches one of Jonny’s wrists in his hand and slows down, sucks a mark just under Jonny’s ear until Jonny’s squirming with it, letting out audible breaths with every thrust. 

“Fuck, feels full, god,” Jonny mumbles, and Pat knows he’s not going to last much longer, so he lets Jonny’s wrist go.

“I wanna watch you come on my dick, Jonny, come on.”

And Jonny does it, jerks himself in time with Pat’s thrusts even when Pat speeds up, pushing Jonny’s thighs out and getting him deep every time. “Oh god,” Jonny says, jerking himself faster, and Pat manages to keep it together long enough to watch Jonny come, spurting over his stomach and clenching down hard on Pat’s dick. “Next time, I wanna feel you come inside me,” Jonny says, catching his breath, and that’s it for Pat, and he’s coming, too, thinking about what that’ll be like, fucking Jonny bare, just getting to fuck Jonny again at all.

Pat feels like he barely has the energy to deal with the condom, but Jonny stands up and then the tap’s running in the bathroom. Pat has a sudden fear that Jonny might just leave again, but he’s back in the room in a second. Jonny stands next to the bed, just looking at Pat, for long enough that Pat shifts restlessly, almost wants to pull the sheets up over himself. But then Jonny just slides in next to him, forcing Pat to move closer to the centre of the bed as Jonny presses himself along Pat’s side, head tucked in on Pat’s shoulder like Jonny’s the smaller one. 

“Hey,” Pat says, running a hand through the short hair at the back of Jonny’s head. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, slow and soft, like he sounds when he first wakes up in the morning. He shifts until Pat’s legs are tangled up with his, his arm stretched out over Pat’s stomach. “You weren’t expecting me to move again, were you?”

Pat swallows. “I was kind of expecting you to bail again, actually.” 

Jonny tilts his head back to look at him, and shifts up onto his elbow to kiss Pat, soft but deep. It goes on for long enough that Pat forgets that they were talking, wrapped up in the feel of Jonny against him, the awareness that he can take his time. “I’m not going anywhere again,” Jonny says. “I fucked up before, I’m sorry.” 

Pat blinks as Jonny looks at him, waiting for a response. Pat can probably count on one hand the number of times Jonny has actually apologized to him. Sometimes Jonny will acknowledge that he was wrong if someone else brings it up, but he rarely outright apologizes. Usually he shows he’s sorry in other ways, small gestures instead of words. 

Once he and Jonny had argued all morning in their hotel room in LA, and Pat had stormed out and spent the entirety of lunch with Sharpy and Shawzy complaining about Jonny as a roommate, and Jonny as a teammate, and Jonny as a friend. When he’d gotten back to their room Jonny had cleaned up his mess and left a care package on Pat’s bed, with all of Pat’s favourite cheat day foods, a couple trashy novels, and, hilariously, a Playgirl magazine. Erica had told Pat later that Jonny had messaged them for advice on the snacks and books, but the Playgirl was all him. 

“OK,” Pat says, looking at him, and presses up to kiss him again. “Be prepared for the shovel talk from Brian and all my sisters.” 

“I’m more worried about your sisters than Brian, is that fair?” Jonny mumbles into Pat’s chest, and Pat laughs.

“Yeah, I would be too.” 

Jonny falls asleep like that, against his chest, and Pat’s sleepy but not so much that he’s willing to dislodge Jonny just yet. He knows it’s creepy to watch Jonny sleep, but he can’t help it. The unreality of the past few hours has sunk in, and it still feels so strange that Jonny is here, with him, wrapped up in his bed. Eventually the familiar pattern of Jonny’s breathing lulls him to sleep.

****

When Patrick wakes up this time, Johnny is there next to him, taking up over half the bed, one arm slung over Pat’s stomach. It’s so proprietary that it makes something flare in Pat’s stomach, and he runs his hand lightly over Jonny’s arm before sliding out of bed. 

When he gets out of the shower, Jonny is at least half-awake, sitting up in bed and scrolling through his phone. Pat leans in the doorway for a second, just watching him. 

“Pat,” he says, looking up and smirking, and Pat cuts him off.

“No, I do not want to take a picture, I want to keep staring at you for as long as I fucking feel like it.”

It startles a laugh out of Jonny, and Pat walks over to him, takes his phone out of his hands and puts it on the table. “We’re gonna be late,” Jonny says softly, as Pat settles over his thighs, his arms on Jonny’s shoulders. He’s just sitting there for a second, really, but Jonny’s looking at him all intense, eyes lidded a little, like he’s really interested to see where Pat’s going with this.

“Uh-huh,” Pat says, and leans forward to just breathe against Jonny’s neck for a second, feeling the way Jonny tenses up, leans his head back a little to give Pat access. “Something you want?” he asks, right against Jonny’s ear, and Jonny grabs at his thighs, just under the edge of his briefs, digs his thumbs in until Pat licks at his neck, just the flat of his tongue for a second, tasting Jonny’s skin, and then he sucks, hard, and Jonny grinds up against him.

“Shit, Pat,” Jonny groans, and Pat pulls back and grins at him. “I both love and hate when you do that.”

“Do what?” Pat says, assuming Jonny means the teasing, but Jonny just reaches up a hand to tap against Pat’s lip, quick.

“That smile thing,” Jonny says. “Your tongue between your teeth. Makes you look so pleased with yourself. It reminds me of when we were kids and you were helping Sharpy prank me, or getting under my skin at dumb-fuck photo shoots.”

“You made it too easy,” Pat says, but he cups a hand around Jonny’s chin for a second, overwhelmed by the tenderness of that, that feeling of being seen by Jonny in a way no one else has ever seen him. “We gotta go, though.” 

He gets up and walks over to his closet, and when he turns around Jonny is sitting there, his hand low on his stomach, head tipped back. “Ok?” Pat says, uncertainly, because maybe that was too much of….something, too fast.

Jonny grins at him. “Just thinking unsexy thoughts,” he says, and then splays his hand even lower on his stomach, pushes the sheet down from around his waist and Pat can see that he’s half-hard.

“Just from that?” Pat says, and he means for it to come out like he’s chirping Jonny but instead it comes out fond and a little young, like Pat is scuffing his foot on the floor and feeling shy.

Jonny grins wider. “Yeah, Pat, just from that.” 

He stands and stretches, picks his clothes up off the floor and shakes them out like he gives two fucks what he looks like showing up to practice. It’s familiar enough, this getting ready thing, and the pattern of it eases something inside Patrick, the comfort of routine, but also the reminder that it’s just them. 

“So,” Jonny says as they’re walking to the car, and Pat turns to him, lets their hands brush as they walk, “when do I get your letterman jacket?”

Pat pushes him around to his side of the car. “You think you’re so fucking funny.”

***

Pat really should have known by now to expect this, but he forgot, has been so wrapped up in his own fucking head that when Sharpy comments on Jonny’s hickey, Pat forgets for a second that he’s the one who put it there a half an hour ago.

“Lackluster effort, Peeks,” Sharpy says, sitting down beside him and talking lower than normal. He’s still smirking that knowing smirk, though, and Pat feels defensive.

“What effort?” Pat says, and Sharpy just tips his head across the room to Jonny, who’s doing a poor job of pretending he’s not watching them, rubbing his hand over his neck in that way he’s always done it, ever since they were kids, that dumb tic of his, but now it’s just making the mark on his neck more pronounced.

“I give that maybe a five at best,” Sharpy says, and Pat snorts, relaxing a little, since Sharpy isn’t turning this into a show.

“I’ll do better next time, just for you.”

“Oh sure, just for me,” Sharpy says, and he gets up and walks across the room, stands in front of Jonny silently for a second before ruffling his hair and making Jonny push him away irritably.

“Fuck off, Sharpy.” Jonny catches his eye across the room when Sharpy walks away, raises his eyebrows, and Pat can’t help but grin at him. What if it could always be that easy? He looks at Seabs looking at Jonny, then back at Pat, then back at Jonny, and then Seabs makes eye contact with Pat and see-saws his hand in the air. Pat ducks his head, laughing.

“Hustle up,” Jonny says, ten minutes later, standing in front of him in his gear and looking down at Pat.

“I’m hustling,” Pat says.

“You’re distracted,” Jonny replies, and for a second he sounds legitimately annoyed until Pat looks up and Jonny’s smirking at him. “You shouldn’t let the boys distract you, Kaner.”

“But Tazer,” Pat says, standing up. “They’re questioning my work.”

Jonny snorts, taps his stick against Pat’s pads again. “I’m not.” He leans in, taps his helmet against Pat’s. “Get the fuck on the ice, though.”

“Who the fuck’s holding me up?” Pat says, but he follows Jonny out of the room. 

This feels normal, somehow. Practice feels normal, and then he and Jonny will have lunch together, like they usually do, and then they’ll go back to Patrick’s place, together. They’re dicking around between drills and Jonny is tapping the puck off Pat’s stick, or trying to, and he’s relentless about it, won’t let up. Saader says something about pulling pigtails and Pat lets Jonny press him up against the boards, lets the puck drift away, and thinks that maybe this isn’t as monumental a shift as he’d thought it would be. 

And for the first time he thinks that, maybe one day, coming out wouldn’t be so monumental either.


End file.
